US human trafficking report 'continues to present inaccuracies': Singapore

http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20130624-431888.html

Source: Asia One

By Pearl Lee
The Straits Times
Monday, Jun 24, 2013

SINGAPORE - The statement by the Singapore Inter-agency Taskforce on Trafficking in Persons (TIP) added that this is because the report by the US Department of State did not take into account Singapore's laws.

Get the full story from The Straits Times.

Here is the press release from Singapore Inter-Agency Taskforce on Trafficking-in-Persons:

The Singapore Inter-agency Taskforce on Trafficking in Persons (TIP) has reviewed the US Department of State (DOS)'s TIP Report 2013.

While the DOS TIP Report has generally captured Singapore's key TIP efforts, we note that it continues to present inaccuracies and misrepresentations that have arisen from the lack of an objective methodology to take into account laws and domestic context in other countries that are different from the United States.

Singapore remains fully committed in our fight against TIP as we believe that this is the right thing to do to safeguard bona fide victims who fall prey to the scourge. This was our impetus to set up a dedicated Taskforce to coordinate a national effort against TIP, and the subsequent launch of a National Plan of Action (NPA) in 2012.

Key achievements in the past year

Singapore's NPA, which was developed in consultation with our partners, adopted a "4P" strategy to proactively combat TIP: Prevention, Prosecution, Protection and Partnership.

Our efforts for 2012 had been guided by the initiatives laid out in the NPA and we were able to achieve all that we set out according to the schedule.

Specifically, this includes securing a dedicated budget to fund various TIP initiatives, strengthening inter-agency coordination and heightening awareness of TIP amongst Government officials, workers and members of the public.

The Taskforce has increased the number of frontline officers and has sharpened their enforcement capabilities through training. We have also further enhanced our internal referral processes between enforcement agencies to expedite investigations.

The emphases on training and referral processes are important as they create a strong foundation that empowers our frontline officers to accurately detect and swiftly deal with TIP cases in the pursuit of justice.

Focus for the years ahead

Singapore remains committed to combat human trafficking as we progressively implement our NPA initiatives in the coming years.

We believe that our small geographical size and tough laws have generally, and will continue to, deter crime syndicates from operating in Singapore.

In early January, the Taskforce announced the launch of a TIP Public Awareness Grant, to encourage more public education initiatives that would help raise public awareness of TIP crimes.

Greater public awareness of TIP can facilitate early reporting of such incidents to the authorities. The Taskforce is in the midst of finalising the recipients of this grant, and will be announcing the recipients soon.

While we welcome the United States' efforts to produce an annual report to highlight this global issue, we continue to call on the DOS to adopt a more objective methodology to report countries' TIP efforts in future editions of its TIP Report.

This will ensure that a consistent, transparent, and measurable standard is applied to all countries taking into account the different legal structures and domestic contexts of countries highlighted in the report.

With or without the TIP Report, Singapore takes a serious view of TIP and its related issues. The Taskforce has built up the momentum and will continue to work closely with civil society organisations (CSOs) and other institutions to tackle this issue and deliver the NPA initiatives.

Human Trafficking | Teaching Tolerance

Author Information

David McKay Wilson

David McKay Wilson, a regular contributor to the Harvard Education Letter, in 2003 traveled to India to interview workers enslaved in bonded labor in the state of Tamil Nadu. .

Read the full bio

Number 39: Spring 2011

In early December 2009, Reggie Wills rose before an assembly at the Edmund Burke School, in Washington, D.C. His T-shirt was emblazoned with the question, “Can you hear it?” On the back, the shirt elaborated: “The silent cry of 27 million enslaved.”

For Burke students and Wills, the school’s director of equity and inclusion, the assembly commemorated the 1949 United Nations convention on human trafficking. The event kicked off efforts to shine new light on why slavery persists in the 21st century. The program seeks to alert students and their communities about slavery’s slippery guises in the modern day, including bonded labor, involuntary servitude and forced prostitution.

This is not the human bondage characterized in high school history books, notes Wills. “Many of our students had images from the 17th and 18th century, with slaves shipped to the United States in chains and working on cotton plantations,” he says. “Today, [slavery] takes on different forms. It’s a problem all over the world, and in the United States as well.”

The shadowy, criminal nature of human trafficking makes evaluating its nature and scope difficult. The U.S. State Department and anti-trafficking groups estimate that worldwide some 27 million people are caught in a form of forced servitude today. Most labor in the developing world, especially in India and African nations. No nation, however, is immune from these inhumane practices. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies have found that human trafficking rings are strengthening inroads into every country, including the United States.

The Nature of Slavery Today
Public awareness of modern-day slavery is gaining momentum thanks to new abolitionist efforts. Among today’s leaders is Ken Morris, president of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation.

“Awareness is the key to one day resolving the issues,” says Morris, who is a direct descendant of both Frederick Douglass, the former slave and abolitionist, and Booker T. Washington, the leading African-American spokesman of the early 20th century. “We need to help people better understand the inhumanity of slavery in every form, with the idea that once people pay attention to the issue, they will be motivated to address it.”

Today’s slavery has metastasized from its pre-industrial roots. Today’s versions go by new names, including forced labor, involuntary domestic servitude, sex trafficking, bonded labor, forced child labor and the impressment of child soldiers into army units. But each form involves the exploitation of vulnerable populations—predominantely women and children—for financial gain. The average price for a human slave today is just $90, according to the anti-slavery organization Free the Slaves. But in aggregate, slavery is a huge international shadow industry worth more than $32 billion annually.

Sources of slaves today are depressingly familiar. In many developing countries, destitute families are forced to sell their children to sweatshops and brothels. In Thailand, for example, young girls are lured from the countryside with the promise of good jobs in the city. But they soon find themselves initiated into the grotesqueries of prostitution.

Destitute laborers may bond themselves to a master in hopes of crawling out from under crushing, often bottomless debt. In south India, bonded gem cutters work for years to pay off debts that may amount to less than $50. High fees for room and board, compounded by absurdly high rates of interest, mean the debt is always beyond fulfillment, and may even be passed on to children and grandchildren.

In the United States, foreign workers can also find themselves swept into the black market of bonded labor. Undocumented immigrants and workers who arrive with sham agreements are particularly vulnerable, caught between ruthless employers and fears of deportation. They may be subjected to bonded labor to work off debt to the smugglers who arranged for their passage into the country. They may end up as servants in private homes where they suffer abuse and sexual exploitation.

Enlisting Students to Confront Modern Slavery
Organizations like the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation are committing much of their efforts to getting the message out to young people about slavery today. They are teaming with educators to teach students about its current forms, and get students motivated to share their newfound awareness.

Elizabeth Devine is a social studies teacher at William H. Hall High School in West Hartford, Connecticut. She includes a three-week unit covering human trafficking and modern-day slavery in her one-semester course on human rights.

Devine’s unit features films, books and guest speakers to help students relate to and engage the material. She introduces the topic with scenes from the film Human Trafficking, a fictionalized look at the sex trade in Eastern Europe. She invites experts, such as a federal prosecutor who presided over a local human trafficking case, into the classroom. “The kids couldn’t believe [human trafficking] was happening here,” Devine says.

Her curriculum also includes excerpts from Sold, Patricia McCormick’s account of a young Nepalese girl who was purchased by an Indian brothel. The class views segments of the PBS series The New Heroes, which features vignettes of individuals around the world fighting modern-day slavery. Students’ perspectives expand from the individual to the systemic when they read Kevin Bales’ book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy.

“No doubt it’s provocative,” says Devine, named the 2009–2010 Secondary Teacher of the Year by the National Council of Social Studies. “The high school students can handle it. And I don’t give them titillating things about sex to read. We focus on the difficulties faced by the women.”

The more students investigate, the more they recognize the economic underpinnings of human trafficking. They learn that wherever there is greed and vulnerable people, conditions exist for turning humans into slaves.

Devine guides students in tracking their own attitudes and perspectives as they explore the mini-unit. She has them keep a “dialectical journal,” synthesizing ideas from in-class discussions with their own ideas and personal responses to texts and videos.

To create the journal, students separate a page into two columns. On the left, they record the facts and concepts included in the text or video, including quotations and descriptions of material that affected them. In the right-hand column, they jot down their own thoughts, questions and insights. “They do it after everything we see or read, so they are constantly reflecting on what they learn,” Devine says.

The unit culminates in an “action project.” These projects ask students to research an issue, then perform a related project in the community. Last year, two girls teamed up to collect backpacks and toiletries for women who had been rescued from traffickers and were living in a safe house.

Service-learning projects also play a central role in the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation’s programs. The foundation encourages educators to design units that compare and contrast today’s anti-slavery struggle with the abolition movements of the past. In one project, called “Off the Chain: Preventative Abolition,” students study how masters used violence and coercion to control slaves. In today’s sex industry, pimps use similar tactics to keep control over prostitutes. Students are asked to come up with ways to educate their peers and other young people about the unglamorous, cruel reality of the sex trade.

In Chicago, students taking part in the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation program explore the subject of slavery through the lens of history. They study the story of Haiti, a republic founded by former slaves who had rebelled against their French owners. 
They then learn about Haiti’s “restavek” system, an entrenched practice in which poor families send their kids to work in the homes of the wealthy—a system the United Nations classifies as slavery. Students are encouraged to create a bridge to Haiti through sister-city programs and letter-writing campaigns urging action to end this form of child exploitation.

“We use history as the entry point,” says Robert Benz, executive director of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation. “And then we look at child trafficking in Haiti.”

At last year’s International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, students at Edmund Burke presented a range of co-curricular projects. In one math class, high school students conducted a statistical analysis of slavery today. One student recited her poem on the theme of human bondage. Another produced a DVD of digital images featuring women and children enslaved around the world. Others created pamphlets and handed them out on the streets of Washington, D.C., to educate passersby to the suffering of 21st century slaves.

Local media helped amplify their message. A Washington newspaper covered the day’s events, and National Public Radio broadcast a segment featuring students speaking about their desire to eradicate slavery.

“There was unity in our cause, and it brought our community together,” Wills says about the day’s events. “The students learned that it’s important not to turn a blind eye to [modern slavery] and that they can make a difference in saving the lives of the innocent.”

Illustration by Doug Chayka

Source: Human Trafficking | Teaching Tolerance

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Human trafficking close to home - The Buffalo News

By Phil Fairbanks

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

Published:January 30, 2011, 11:43 PM

Sheriff's Deputy Elizabeth Fildes, who heads the Western New York Human Trafficking Alliance, says some of the victims are as young as 12, while others are in their 60s. She says that in interviewing victims, it is crucial to gain their trust and cooperation.
Derek Gee/Buffalo News

Sheriff's deputy plays lead role as she works to help victims of all ages in local battle against atrocious crimes ranging from prostitution to slavery

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Updated: January 30, 2011, 11:43 PM

When you hear the words "human trafficking," chances are good you think of underaged prostitutes in Malaysia or child laborers in Saudi Arabia or Guatemala.

Elizabeth Fildes wants you to think instead of Amherst, Lancaster and Orchard Park.

"There is no place tonight where human trafficking will not be happening," said the 29-year Erie County sheriff's deputy.

Few know that better than Fildes, a key figure in nearly every local investigation into human trafficking the past five years.

And no one has been as close to the victims.

"My youngest victim was 12," she said. "My oldest was in her late 60s."

The horror stories are many and the details so brutal, some investigators find it hard hearing them.

"She's told me there are times when her male colleagues have to walk out of the room," said her husband, Gerald Fildes. "Somehow, she's able to keep her emotions in check. Of course later, when she's home, she'll let it out."

As head of the Western New York Human Trafficking Alliance, a task force of local, state and federal law enforcement officials, Fildes has gained a reputation strong enough to land her in Guatemala last year as an envoy for the U.S. State Department. Her pioneering work and leadership have earned her numerous awards and honors and, even more important, the respect of police, prosecutors and judges.

"She's the boots on the ground, as we like to say," said Undersheriff Mark N. Wipperman. "Where Liz is at her best is in interviewing victims. They're afraid. They don't know who to trust. And somehow, Liz can walk in that room and get them talking."

For five years, Fildes has been the law enforcement official in the room, gaining the trust of victims.

She, more than anyone else, knows that without a victim's cooperation, the chances of a successful prosecution are almost nil.

"They have to trust you," Fildes said. "They have to know you're there to help them."

And there's nothing easy about that.

Whether it's a prostitute terrified of her violent pimp or a migrant worker afraid of deportation, the emotional hurdles that stand between the victims and the people trying to help them are immense.

Talk to her for any length of time about her work and you understand why the terrified and forgotten trust Fildes.

"Her compassion and sincerity are her biggest assets," said Susan Darlak, a close friend and a former special assistant in the Sheriff's Office. "No matter what time, day or night, she is always available for the victims. She has so much motivation, and it all comes from the heart."

For Fildes, it's more than just a job.

She talks passionately and, yes, endlessly, but not about herself or her accomplishments. It's always about the victims and what they endure.

She will tell you, quite bluntly, of women who are beaten and raped and forced into modern-day slavery. And she will tell you that, even now, government and society are falling short in the mission to abolish human trafficking.

And on occasion, she too breaks down.

Back in November, she appeared before the Erie County Legislature to receive a proclamation honoring her service and, while talking about the frequent late-night cell phone calls seeking help, her voice faltered.

"We still don't see them for who they are, which is victims," Fildes said last week. "I mean a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old, a 12-year-old doesn't wake up one morning and say, 'Oh, this is a career I want to be in. I want to be a prostitute.'"

Even now, five years and 30 investigations later, she can recall every single victim. Some of them she helped.

Others fell through cracks.

One of them was a 23-year-old local woman, a U.S. Army veteran with a biker-boyfriend who eventually became her pimp.

At the time of her arrest, she was turning seven or eight tricks a day, always fearful of another beating at the hands of her boyfriend-turned-pimp. Fildes got her some help, but in the end, it wasn't enough, and she returned to the tricks and beatings.

"I didn't have enough to offer her," she said. "And that was not the first time. There have been many girls who have showed up, and I haven't been able to help."

One of the biggest reasons is what Fildes and others see as one of the great outrages of her work here.

Thanks to a federal grant and the work of the International Institute of Buffalo, a wide range of programs and services are available to foreign-born victims of human trafficking.

Unfortunately, the opposite is true of victims born here.

"It makes you angry," Fildes said. "It's pretty hard when you have a victim in front of you and you want do the right thing but you can't."

Not surprisingly, Fildes is part of a group trying to fill that need. The goal? Raising money to finance and open United Hands of Hope, the region's first safe house for U.S.-born victims of human trafficking.

"You have to have someplace here for them," she said. "It's like a victim of domestic violence. Somebody's got to be there for them."

There are some happy endings, and those are the men, women and children who keep her going, who get her up for work each morning.

"It tends to be a roller coaster," said her husband, Gerald. "When things are going well, she's on a high. But there are bad times too, and I can always tell."

Ask Fildes about the victories, and she'll reel off a list of cases, some of them high-profile investigations such as the massage parlor prostitution operation run by Len Wah "Lisa" Chong.

Chong, who admitted that she recruited the prostitutes, was sentenced to six years in prison. Prosecutors said that the women made $60 for sex acts but that Chong took $50 of it off the top.

Fildes said the Chong case was satisfying because of the close working relationship she developed with the
FBI and Border Patrol agents working on the case.

It also confirmed two little-known facts about human trafficking -- women, as well as men, can be traffickers, and each culture tends to exploit their own.

"Americans traffic Americans, Chinese traffic Chinese, and Mexicans traffic Mexicans," she said.

After five years, Fildes admits there is little that shocks her anymore. One of the few exceptions was her visit to Guatemala last year as a representative of the State Department.

She went there with the intention of meeting with judges, law enforcement officials and legislators but took time out to tour some of the country's poorer regions.

"It was worse than anything I could have imagined," she said. "To actually see little kids in child labor. That was a rough day for me. To actually watch four-year olds pounding rocks into blocks. That was horrible."

In some strange way, it's those brutal images that motivate Fildes.

Even now, you can sense the anger when she talks about the people she helped put behind bars. Near the top of the list is retired State Supreme Court Justice Ronald H. Tills of West Falls.

Tills was sentenced to 18 months in prison for transporting an illegal immigrant named Coco across state lines to serve as a prostitute at a Royal Order of Jesters convention in Kentucky.

"I will never forgive myself for the possible harm I've caused to the victims in this case," Tills told a packed courtroom.

Possible harm?

For Fildes, that was a chilling reminder of Tills' lack of remorse.

"I'll never forget that," she said. "I remember sitting in the back of the courtroom, completely numb."
As she looks ahead, Fildes admits that her time as an investigator is coming to an end but that she will leave confident others are there to pick up the slack.

"On the whole, it's the most satisfying work I've ever done," she said. "And I know I've made a difference."

pfairbanks@buffnews.com

Source: The Buffalo News
Human trafficking close to home - The Buffalo News

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Canada’s pitiful track record in combating human trafficking

By Michael Rappaport February 04 2011 issue

[Jeremy Bruneel for The Lawyers Weekly] Click here to see full sized version. A man far from home has no neighbours —so said the Japanese to rationalize the brutality of their soldiers in occupied lands before and during the Second World War, including the rape of women, the massacre of civilians and the beheading of prisoners. Does this explanation also account for the behaviour of Canadian men who engage in sex-tourism abroad — in particular, the predators and pedophiles who prey on indentured women and children in foreign lands? Disturbingly, this is the conclusion I arrived at after reading Invisible Chains: Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking by Benjamin Perrin, an exposé of Canada’s pitiful track record in combating sexual trafficking both at home and abroad. Perrin is an assistant law professor at the University of British Columbia and the founder and executive director of The Future Group, an NGO he created in 2000 to combat human trafficking. A modern day William Wilberforce — the British abolitionist and activist — Perrin was named a “hero acting to end modern-day slavery” by Hillary Clinton and the U.S. State Department in 2009. He is the first Canadian to receive this honour. In 1997, Canada joined a growing number of countries in making it a crime for its citizens to sexually exploit minors anywhere in the world. But until 2007, only one Canadian sex-tourist had been convicted in Canada for abusing and molesting children abroad. And Donald Bakker’s crimes were only discovered by accident — when police seized a bag from him in the course of an arrest, which contained videos of him sexually abusing minors in a Cambodian brothel. Bakker received a 10-year sentence for his crimes, minus three years for 18 months served in pre-trial custody. But for the most part, Canadian sex tourists travel freely through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, purchasing sex with underage women and children with impunity. It can be argued that prosecuting Canadians in Canada for sexual crimes committed abroad is a daunting task, given the costs associated with international investigations, complications flowing from a lack of jurisdiction and the challenges of ensuring a fair trial where victims and witnesses either cannot be found or compelled to testify. Yet Canada’s record at prosecuting domestic human traffickers is almost equally pathetic. Until 2005, the Criminal Code had no offence of human trafficking. In contrast, the U.S., the European Union and many other countries have been active in protecting victims and prosecuting traffickers and travelling sex offenders for the past 10 to 15 years. The first major report by the RCMP on human trafficking in Canada in 2004 estimated that about 600 foreign nationals are brought to Canada for sex trafficking every year. Often young women — primarily from the Philippines, Moldova, China and Romania — are smuggled into Canada or lured to Canada by fraudulent offers of employment. Upon arrival, their passports and visas are confiscated and they are forced to work in strip clubs, massage parlors and “micro-brothels,” which can be set up in hotel rooms, apartment units and even luxury condominiums. Not all trafficked women are foreigners. Domestic sex traffickers prey on at-risk youth, in particular aboriginals from reservations and teenagers from broken homes in impoverished communities. Shockingly, over 500 aboriginal girls and women have gone missing in Canada over the last 30 years. Sex trafficking is highly lucrative. The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CSIC) estimates that domestic sex traffickers earn an average of $280,000 annually from every victim under their control. Although Canada created an offence in “trafficking in persons” under the Criminal Code in late 2005, the first conviction under this provision wasn’t secured until June 2008. And to make matters worse, the handful of pimps who have been convicted of human trafficking generally receive overly lenient sentences — a slap on the wrist for coercing young women and minors into prostitution, controlling their every movement and abusing and exploiting them for financial gain. Pimps use a combination of charisma and coercion to control their victims and push them into prostitution. Is the oily charm of pimps so potent that it causes judges to go soft? Worse, perhaps judges have succumbed to the myth of the fallen woman: that women forced into prostitution have no value or virtue, so crimes committed against them, such as rape, do not merit punishment. The sentences handed down to human traffickers have been so inadequate that Parliament introduced Bill C-268 in January 2009, which establishes a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for convicted child traffickers. All this is not to let the “johns” off the hook — the men who purchase sex at home and abroad. In 1999, the Swedish government recognized prostitution as an institution of male violence against women that cannot be tolerated or condoned. Rather than punishing the sellers of sex, Sweden implemented laws targeting the purchasers — the johns who fuel the growth of human trafficking. Invisible Chains is a brave book for shining a light on the dark, seedy corners of our communities and abroad, which most of us would rather ignore. Sadly, it reveals, a woman far from home — in particular a young, vulnerable, marginalized woman — has no neighbours either. Source:lawyersweekly.ca

Canada’s pitiful track record in combating human trafficking

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27 people found in human trafficking raids in Largo, Clearwater - St. Petersburg Times

By Rita Farlow, David DeCamp and Luis Perez, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Thursday, December 9, 2010

---

The Country Super Buffet in Largo is closed Wednesday after FBI agents and officers with the Clearwater/Tampa Bay Area Task Force on Human Trafficking executed a search warrant.
	[JIM DAMASKE | Times]

LARGO — The two white vans would pull up to the nondescript beige duplex on the dead-end street early in the morning. At the honk of a horn, a dozen or more Hispanic and Asian men and women would come out of the home and pile into the vans.

Neighbors wouldn't see them again until late at night or early the next morning when the vans reappeared to drop them off.

"That's seven days a week," said 67-year-old Sylvia Leuci, a home health nurse who works at a home across the street.

Just a few miles away in Clearwater, a similar scene was unfolding each day at a one-story tan home with a single-car garage and an overgrown lawn.

On Wednesday, the FBI and local law enforcement officers raided both homes and a Chinese restaurant on East Bay Drive as part of an investigation into human trafficking.

In all, authorities found 27 people living in the two homes at 2820 Oaklawn Ave. in Largo and 2401 Havana Drive in Clearwater.

Investigators are looking at the possibility that the people were being forced to work at the Country Super Buffet at 5010 East Bay Drive, said special agent Dave Couvertier, a spokesman for the Tampa field office of the FBI.

No arrests were made, he said, but the investigation is ongoing.
Corporate filings with the state list the registered agent of the business as Jian Hui Wang, who also was renting the Largo home.

The people found at the homes are being treated as victims and were being interviewed Wednesday to determine the circumstances of their status in the United States, investigators said. Most are Hispanic and Asian, and all appear to be adults, Couvertier said.

The Salvation Army and World Relief are working to assist the people with housing, food and clothing, Couvertier said.

At the Largo address, 19 people were found.

"We noticed these big vans coming and going with all of these people," said next-door neighbor Michelle Kramer.

"They leave early in the morning and don't get back until late at night, like midnight, sometimes 1 (a.m.)."
Kramer said "tons of people" lived at the home and they rarely communicated with neighbors. There are three bedrooms in each of the two units, she said.

Mike Modha, 45, of Lutz said the home belongs to his business partner, Akshay Patel. Modha, a Realtor, said Patel left him in charge of the property when he went to England to seek treatment for health problems more than 18 months ago.

Modha said he rented the duplex in January to Wang, whom he knew as Kenny. The rent is $1,300 and the lease says that six people can stay in each unit.

On the lease, Wang listed his employer as Royal Buffet at 9550 U.S. 19. in Port Richey. Modha said Wang told him he would use one duplex for himself and another for restaurant workers.

Except for one month, Wang always paid the rent on time Modha said.

"If they broke the law, they should be punished," said Modha, himself an immigrant who came from Gujarat, India, 12 years ago.

In September, he and his wife became U.S. citizens.

At the Clearwater address, eight people were found.

Neighbors said the residents, who appeared to be Asian, had lived there since summer. Emily DeGarmo, 22, who lives across the street, said "they had a lot of people coming in and out."

The home's owner could not be reached for comment.

Early Wednesday afternoon, more than a dozen FBI agents, Pinellas County sheriff's deputies and other authorities were going in and out of the house. They carried items in brown paper evidence bags and in black and yellow bins.

"This specific situation should serve as what I refer to as a wake-up call to the folks in our local community," Couvertier said. "It can happen anywhere. It's not limited to this area."

Human trafficking is a worldwide problem that usually takes the form of forced labor, domestic servitude or forced prostitution, the most common of the three. In the United States, it's estimated that anywhere from a couple of thousand to several thousand people a year are victims of human trafficking, Couvertier said.

According to a 2009 draft of a report by the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University, labor trafficking is the most prevalent type of human trafficking in Florida.

A finalized 2010 version of the report, commissioned by the state Legislature, notes that Florida was the third-leading state, with 296 calls to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline in 2009.

Between May 2009 and June 2010, the state Department of Children and Families received reports of 156 trafficking incidents through its hotline. Of those, 22 cases were verified as trafficking, the report said.

Worldwide, 49,105 victims were identified in 2009, according to the 2010 Trafficking in Persons report published by the U.S. Department of State.

Officers with the Clearwater/Tampa Bay Area Task Force on Human Trafficking said their investigation began several months ago with a tip from a source they declined to identify. During the investigation, they were able to gain intelligence that led to Wednesday's search warrants.

Couvertier and Clearwater police spokeswoman Beth Watts said it's important for people to be aware of what's happening around them and to report suspicious activity.

"It will help us, hopefully, to rescue women, children and men brought in (to the United States) under the ruse of promises of a better life," Couvertier said.

Unfortunately, Couvertier said, "They don't know what's waiting for them on the other side."

Times staff writer Mike Brassfield and Times researcher Shirl Kennedy contributed to this report.

Suspect anything?
Clearwater police said some signs of human trafficking include large numbers of people living in the same home, people who seem abnormally withdrawn or afraid and indications people are being held against their will, such as locks on windows. Authorities ask that anyone who thinks they have come into contact with a victim of human trafficking in Pinellas, Pasco or Hillsborough counties to call the Clearwater/Tampa Bay Area Task Force on Human Trafficking hotline at (727) 562-4917. In other areas, contact the Trafficking Information and Referral Hotline at 1-888-373-7888.

[Last modified: Dec 09, 2010 07:11 AM]
Source: St. Petersburg Times

27 people found in human trafficking raids in Largo, Clearwater - St. Petersburg Times

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Responding to the call to end human trafficking | EnerPub - Energy Publisher

Image by 350.org via Flickr

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

by Mary Ellen Manz

The scourge of trafficking in fellow human beings—once thought to have been eliminated with the end of slavery in the 19th century—has in recent years surfaced in a new form but with a similar goal: the forced use and abuse of others.

Three years ago, members of the Congregations of Religious Women from all over the world responded to a call from the International Organization of Migration alerting them to the ongoing crime of human and sex trafficking, a modern-day form of slavery. Sisters from all over the world, including the Maryknoll Sisters, took up the cause.

Maryknoll Sisters working in Washington and at the United Nations in New York monitor initiatives and legislation to combat the crime, while their colleagues in Asia and Africa work with at-risk women and vulnerable migrant laborers who are most frequently the victims of trafficking.

In Cambodia, Maryknoll Sister Helene O’Sullivan has been working with trafficked women and adolescents for years, helping women and children break free from traffickers and other abusive and violent situations. At the

Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center in Phnom Penh, where she serves, these victims find shelter, medical care, counseling and legal assistance, as well as encouragement and empowerment to begin new lives. The center offers literacy training, vocational training and life skills training to help them accomplish that.

O’Sullivan tells the story of Sina, whose case highlights the horrors some trafficking victims must live.

“When I met Sina, she was wearing a heavy cotton face mask because she had no teeth and her face had sunken in and though only in her 20s she looked 60 or 70 years old. Sina’s teeth had been cruelly yanked out of her mouth with pliers by the brothel owner as a punishment for anything he saw as not obeying him or trying to escape,” O’Sullivan says.

Sina came from one of the poorest provinces of Cambodia where dire poverty causes many teenagers to run away from home hoping to find freedom and a more prosperous life. Little do they realize that there is no way for a young girl to survive on her own.

“Starving and without money, she met a friend who took her to a brothel where Sina had no idea of the nightmare she had fallen into,” O’Sullivan says. “There were eight girls held prisoner and made to use their bodies for sex. If they refused or tried to escape, the punishment was to pull out one of their teeth with pliers, starting with a girl’s back teeth.”

By the time Sina was rescued by the anti-trafficking police unit in Phnom Penh, she had not a tooth left and her mouth was badly torn. After searching the city, O’Sullivan found a dentist with the proper technology to treat Sina. It will be a long, painful ordeal, but when the work is done, Sina will finally be able to remove her mask.

“While we were waiting to meet the dentist with Sina, the counselor from the center said to her, ‘This is the beginning of a new life for you,’ ” says O’Sullivan. “Sina looked at us and nodded.”

Elsewhere, other Maryknoll Sisters reach out to women from different cultures but who face similar dehumanizing fates.

Sister Bibiana Bunuan, a Maryknoll Sister from the Philippines serving in the African nation of Namibia, works to alert people to the dangers to their children.

“What saddens me most is that so many people, old and young, are not aware of trafficking,” Bunuan says. “When I give talks on this social issue, however, and ask participants whether or not they are aware of any missing young people, they do have stories to tell. One teacher told me that parents bring their own school-age children to places that promise them employment, but end up exploiting them.”

In Cambodia, O’Sullivan says, desperately poor parents have been known to bring daughters to brothels and sell them for $150. The girls are then forced to work off the debt and are often heated into working this way for years.

Elsewhere in Asia, Maryknoll Sisters Margaret Lacson and Elizabeth Kato in Japan work with Filipino women who have left their homeland for employment and a better life only to find themselves victims of deceit and abuse.

Many of the women who seek refuge at the Kalakasan Center for migrant women in Kawasaki, where Lacson serves, were brought north to work as “hostesses” in Japan’s “entertainment industry,” often euphemisms for prostitution or gateways to it
.
Lacson, who is also Filipina and speaks to the women in their own language, helps oversee the center, offering crisis intervention, followup counseling and skills training to help women better support themselves.

Yet the crime of trafficking—with its ends of forced labor and forced prostitution—isn’t just in far-off parts of the globe.

According to the U.S. State Department, out of the 600,000 to 800,000 people trafficked across international borders worldwide each year some 14,500 to 17,500 of those victims are trafficked into the United States from all over Asia, Central and South America and Eastern Europe.

In his letter “21st Century Slavery—the Human Rights Dimension to Trafficking in Human Beings,” Pope John Paul II said human trafficking “constitutes a shocking offense against human dignity and a grave violation of fundamental human rights … in particular the sexual exploitation of women and children.”

So just as human trafficking—the second-largest and fastest-growing criminal industry in the world—is a modern form of slavery, our “global village” of instant multimedia information and global travel makes it a local problem.

Hence, it is no longer excusable for one to say, “I never knew.”

Maryellen Manz MM writes for Maryknoll Magazine.

Info: DVD on human trafficking: http://www.maryknollsocietymall.org/description2.cfm?ISBN=100518

Source: EnergyPublisher.com

Responding to the call to end human trafficking | EnerPub - Energy Publisher

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The Daily Tell » Blog Archive » Embrey Family Foundation donates $1 million to anti-human trafficking charity

Article By Michelle Lamont On December - 2 - 2010

 

Many of us who are privileged enough to live in the developed world think of human trafficking as a thing of the past, a relic that exists only in movies. Unfortunately, the reality is that human trafficking is still among the most common and brutal crimes in the world and the second largest criminal industry on Earth, bringing in billions in revenue every year.

As with any illegal, underground activity, statistics on human trafficking aren't readily available, but according to the U.S. Department of State's 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report, estimates vary from 4 to 27 million people in modern-day slavery and sex work around the world. Many of these are children, about 1 million of whom are exploited for the global commercial sex trade every year.

But hope is not lost, and charities around the world are working every day to put an end to this practice. In fact, the Denver-based Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking has recently received a $1 million grant from the Embrey Family Foundation to help it pilot a national study of promising practices in the anti-human trafficking field, the Denver Business News reports.

"Currently, no national campaign exists to guide states, cities, and communities in addressing human trafficking," said LCHT executive director Amanda Finger. "We believe Colorado is an ideal place to pilot this ambitious project. Not only is it a source, transit and destination state for human trafficking, it also has a vibrant anti-trafficking movement."

Using funds from the grant, the Colorado Project to Comprehensively Combat Human Trafficking will document successful strategies to prevent human trafficking, protect survivors, punish traffickers and build partnerships among other charities working toward the same goals. LCHT will conduct its research in collaboration with statewide leaders from multiple fields, including Dr. Annjanette Alejano-Steele, a professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver; the Denver Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Denver attorney and anti-trafficking advocate Patricia Medige; and Lauren Croucher, Human Trafficking Project Director with the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance.

It has been a decade since the U.S. passed federal legislation to combat human trafficking, but the crime persists. However, thanks to the generosity of the Embrey Family Foundation and the work of groups like the LCHT, human trafficking may soon be ended.

Source: The Daily Tell

The Daily Tell » Blog Archive » Embrey Family Foundation donates $1 million to anti-human trafficking charity

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Tech Gets Enlisted In The War Against Human Trafficking - Investors.com

By SHEILA RILEY, FOR INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY  

Posted 12/03/2010 04:38 PM ET

The fight against human trafficking is using a few new weapons: texting, iPhone apps and smarter passports.

An estimated 12.3 million adults and children around the world are trafficked — compelled in a variety of ways to work against their will — the U.S. State Department says.

"It's basically modern-day slavery," said Mark Latonero, research director for the University of Southern California's Annenberg Center. "It's a pernicious and widespread global problem."

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher lent their celebrity clout to a November news conference at United Nations headquarters concerning the launch of the U... View Enlarged Image

The term "trafficking" covers a wide area.
"It's not just forced prostitution, it's also forced labor — people working in slaverylike conditions on farms, fishing boats, in nail salons, whatever," Latonero said.

He's working on a project to make it easier to get help for trafficking victims via cell phone.

The Technology and Trafficking in Persons Research Initiative will allow concerned citizens, potential trafficking victims and possibly victims themselves to text information to a hotline. The project is led by the Annenberg Center.

Texts will be sorted by a computer and sent to appropriate agencies that could help, Latonero says.

The initiative focuses on the Mekong region in Southeast Asia: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, southern China and Burma.

"This part of the world is a major source, transit and destination region for men, women and children forced into labor and prostitution," Latonero said.

Cell Phones Aplenty
The program could be in place by mid-2011 in Thailand, with government funding and philanthropic grants expected to cover the $500,000-plus launch costs.

Though residents of the region are extremely poor — which makes them vulnerable to trafficking — most have cell phones, Latonero says.

"That," he said, "is our opportunity."

Phones are used on another front in the fight against trafficking. An iPhone application for consumers concerned about whether forced or child labor was used to create their purchase became available last month.

The app, Free2Work, is a joint project of Not For Sale, a San Francisco anti-slavery nonprofit, and the International Labor Rights Forum, a nonprofit advocacy organization for workers. Juniper Networks (JNPR) funded the development of the application, which is free.

With the app, shoppers can access information about the labor practices of some 60 companies, including Nike (NKE), Hasbro (HAS), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Apple (AAPL). It rates the companies' labor practices. Not For Sale compiles information from company Web sites and public databases to create its corporate ratings.

"It's when people are shopping that they really need that information," said Dave Batsone, president of Not For Sale.

Source: Investor.com

Tech Gets Enlisted In The War Against Human Trafficking - Investors.com

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Human Trafficking in Asia: Progress and Continued Challenges | Asia Society

Facing up to Asia's other growth industry

watch video

In New York on Nov. 2, Nandita Baruah discusses the private sector's responsibility for ensuring their operations in poor countries abide by labor standards. (1 min., 47 sec.)

• Watch the complete program

NEW YORK, November 2, 2010 - Human trafficking is a multi-faceted problem which requires collaboration between governments, civil society, and the private sector, argued the participants in Asia Society panel on human trafficking in Asia.
Nandita Baruah, Chief of Party of The Asia Foundation's Counter Trafficking in Persons program in Cambodia; Jean D'Cunha, UNIFEM Adviser on Global Migration; and Mark Taylor, Senior Coordinator for Reports and Political Affairs, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, US Department of State, joined moderator Alyse Nelson, President of Vital Voices, to discuss current challenges to combating human trafficking, as well as promising approaches to protect and support victims, bring traffickers to justice, and prevent trafficking in local communities across Asia.

800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked across international borders every year, generating billions of dollars for the human trafficking industry. One important way of disrupting the industry, says Baruah, is by holding companies responsible for ensuring that their operations in poor countries abide by labor standards.
"[Companies cannot avoid] responsibility by saying that it was sublet to someone else. It becomes your moral responsibility to say whether your producer is producing [your product] in-house with legitimate labor, or is subletting it out to somebody who has got ten minor children who are actually producing it in his backyard."

While some governments have made great strides in the fight against human trafficking, D'Cunha argued that greater attention needs to be paid to prevention. "There is more emphasis on post-violation assistance," D'Cunha observed. "Whenever you do have preventive initiatives, they are often in the nature of micro-livelihood projects, which are not sustainable, they are not gender responsive, they often are not market responsive, and they only reinforce susceptibility to distress migration or to trafficking."

Fortunately, the issue of human trafficking has benefitted from rare bipartisan support in Congress. "It is truly remarkable, the extent of support we receive from all political walks in the US," Taylor said. "The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 passed unanimously and there have been three amendments to the law since then showing the great congressional support and interest in the issue .... In a time when that kind of consensus is pretty rare, it continues and it has been terrific to see the continuity from administration to administration."

One of the most important victories in the fight against human trafficking, according to Nelson, is that the issue is not seen solely as a women's issue. "It is a law enforcement issue; it is an organized crime issue; it is a human rights issue; it is a global security issue; it is a health issue."

Reported by Ben Linden

Human Trafficking in Asia: Progress and Continued Challenges | Asia Society

Source: Asia Society

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Human trafficking subject of conference at UD

Cover via Amazon

Smaller type

By Dave Larsen, Staff Writer 12:11 PM Monday, October 19, 2009

Dayton Daily News

DAYTON — The FBI has identified Ohio as a source, route and destination for human trafficking.

“A Global Report on Trafficking in Persons,” released in February by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said that a country with at least 100 reported cases of human trafficking is considered to have a serious problem with the modern-day form of slavery.

“Ohio probably has 100 cases,” said Mark Ensalaco, director of the University of Dayton’s Human Rights Program, on Monday, Oct. 19. If Ohio was a country, “we would ... qualify,” he said.

As many as 17,000 persons are trafficked into the U.S. each year from Asia, Central and South America and Eastern Europe, and are exploited for commercial sex, including prostitution, stripping and pornography, or exploited for labor in domestic servitude, sweatshops or migrant agricultural work, according to U.S. State Department figures.

“It’s everything maids to exotic dancers to prostitutes on the streets to, who knows, people working in commercial agriculture even in this area,” Ensalaco said.

UD on Nov. 9-10 will host the Dayton Human Trafficking Accords Conference, university officials announced Monday in a meeting with the Dayton Daily News editorial board.

The event will feature a talk on the evening of Nov. 9 by Benjamin Skinner, winner of the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for nonfiction for his book, “A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face With Modern Day Slavery.”

On Nov. 10, the conference will include working sessions for area law enforcement officials and victims advocates to assess the extent of human trafficking in Ohio and what is being done for victims, Ensalaco said. Attendance to the working sessions is by invitation only.

The public session, “Trafficking is Slavery,” will include a forum with former trafficking victims, a screening of the film “Playground” and a conversation with filmmaker Libby Spears.

“The idea is to make the University of Dayton available as an academic resource to the community and see what we can do moving forward,” Ensalaco said.

For more information on the conference contact UD’s Human Rights Program at (937) 229-2765 or visit academic.udayton.edu/HumanRights/Trafficking%20Conf.htm.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/human-trafficking-subject-of-conference-at-ud-354286.html

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