Human Trafficking In Europe Priority For EU Spanish Presidency | Gov Monitor

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Source: European Parliament Posted on: 24th January 2010

In modern Europe there exists a new type of slavery that involves the trafficking of people for sexual and labour slavery. Europol have said the problem did not decrease last year and that 80% of its victims are women.

Last Tuesday (19 January), Swedish Socialist MEP Anna Hedh and Conservative MEP Edit Bauer from Slovakia raised the issue in Parliament.

They will ask questions to the Council of Ministers and the European Commission to try and get anti-trafficking high on Europe’s agenda.

Why are you raising this issue now?

Trafficking is constantly increasing. Slavery was abolished over 200 years ago in Europe but thousands of people are being sold today. Trafficking includes sexual and labour exploitation, forced labour, domestic servitude and other forms of exploitation including the removal of organs. It is considered to be one of the most serious crimes worldwide. More than 80% of the victims are women.

Last year the Commission suggested a framework for legislation against trafficking in human beings. But since the Lisbon Treaty was ratified, Parliament now has an equal say with ministers over this issue and we want the Commission to use a different legal framework. And this is why we are asking a question and handing in a resolution.

What has to be done to deal with the problem?

The Commission likes to talk about a different penalty rate but we also need a holistic approach in all policy making. For example, it involves migration. There must be harsh penalties. But we also need prevention and to get all EU members to deal with the question of demand. If there was no demand there would be no problem.

I would like to sell the Swedish model on the purchase of sexual services (under which the purchaser gets punished). It is sensitive but Sweden has fewer problems with trafficking than the rest of the EU.

What sanctions do you want for those involved in human trafficking?

There must be harsh penalties in order for it to work. The Commission has suggested three different levels and I think that the highest level they propose (12 years) should be the lowest. I think there must be a penalty of at least 10 years in prison. We are talking about a person who has bought and sold a human being.

Trafficking is one of the priorities of the EU Spanish presidency…

Yes, and this makes me happy. I hope that they will succeed with the discussions in the council because previously there have been different views, amongst other things about the levels of penalties. I hope the Spanish presidency will unite the council so that we get good legislation.

While we are talking people are being exploited and people are exploiting. Is there a risk that this will be only another directive and that nothing will change?

Yes. This is a big problem and it is very important to make sure that this is legislation that will allow us to put pressure on the member states.

We also need to educate the police and court personnel across the EU. In addition, victims must know that they are entitled to support when they have been exploited, so that they ask for help from the national authorities.

Legal texts are often difficult to read and therefore it is important that the member states produce information campaigns to disseminate information for all citizens and victims.

Human Trafficking In Europe Priority For EU Spanish Presidency | Gov Monitor

CBS 7 - Your Eye on West Texas

Image by `jenigma via Flickr

Jennifer Samp
CBS 7 News
jsamp@cbs7.com

January 25, 2010

You’ve seen it portrayed in movies and on television, but it’s a very real epidemic.

Millions of people each year are forced into modern-day slavery or prostitution.
Now law enforcement officials say the problem maybe closer than we think.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Houston and El Paso are two of the most intense trafficking areas in the country.

ICE officials says offenders bring their victims right here through west Texas.

Texas attorney Greg Abbott called a human trafficking prevention task force meeting last Tuesday to better identify victims.

"Texas comprises the largest portion of that,” Jerry Garnett with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, “So there's going to be a large volume coming through the state of Texas"

So what does this mean for our area?

“Organizations don't bring the people here for them to remain here.” Garnett says.

He says the Midland-Odessa area is not a haven but a corridor for human trafficking groups.

“This is just a wait point along the way they might bring them here in one load then break up that load going destine for different parts of the United States.” Garnett said.

He says it's hard for law enforcement to recognize these trafficking groups.

Its very difficult in that we have to identify the organization and actually have some type of information coming from it.” Garnett said. “Usually we get the information from a victim of trafficking.”

He says the difference between smuggling and trafficking are the intentions.
Debt bondage can easily turn "smuggling" into "trafficking"

Debt bondage would be cases were the aliens were smuggled into the U.S. and they're forced into working in order to payoff their smuggling fees.

In most cases the victim never pays off their smuggling fees

“For females its prostitution or massage parlors,” Garnett said, “Children it's a little bit different but children could also be traffic for the sex trade.”

Garnett says is a way to lure people in who are just looking for a way to live in America

“They try to tell the people, we'll bring you into the United States, well find you a job, we'll do all this for you and rope the people into it.” Garner said.

If you suspect human trafficking or smuggling, ICE recommends calling their tip line: 1-866-DHS-2-ICE

CBS 7 - Your Eye on West Texas

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Moved to adopt Haitians? It's not always best, experts say - CNN.com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

January 22, 2010 10:33 a.m. EST

{PHOTO}Haitian orphans rest on mattresses in a truck this week at the Maison des Enfants de Dieu orphanage in Port-au-Prince.
Haitian orphans rest on mattresses in a truck this week at the Maison des Enfants de Dieu orphanage in Port-au-Prince.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

(CNN) -- The images of Haitian children crying or injured or wandering the streets alone are heartbreaking. It's no surprise there has been a flood of well-intentioned people who want to adopt those children.

But that's not always the best immediate move, aid groups caution.

Save the Children Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said the "vast majority" of children on their own in Haiti are not orphans, but were simply separated from their families in the chaos.

Their family members may still be alive, she said, and "will be desperate to be reunited with them."

"Taking children out of the country would permanently separate thousands of children from their families -- a separation that would compound the acute trauma they are already suffering and inflict long-term damage on their chances of recovery," Whitbread said.

Hurriedly whisking unclassified children out of Haiti will not ensure the children are happy or safe in the long-term, experts said. Homes and potential parents must be reviewed by professional social workers and it's logistically impossible to do that in a short time. Allowing adoptions to proceed without thorough background checks can lead to child trafficking and other crimes.

The United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, does not facilitate adoptions, but it has been bombarded with calls from people who want a Haitian orphan, said Christopher de Bono, a UNICEF spokesman.

In 2007, UNICEF estimated that there were 380,000 orphans in Haiti, but de Bono said Thursday that he'd "hate to vouch for that figure" because that number -- any number -- is impossible to verify.

Between Haiti's "lousy [child welfare] oversight system," and all the challenges that Haitians have endured, it's not uncommon for Haitian parents to put their children in orphanages temporarily, de Bono said. This means knowing who is truly an orphan and who isn't requires great attention to detail and documents.

"Removing children who've just experienced a disaster from their environment, from where they're from is not necessarily good for them," he said. Haitian children must first be fed, sheltered, clothed and given medical attention; the next step is to register them and trace their relatives.

Diana Boni, who works with Port-au-Prince's BRESMA orphanage, is firmly against new adoptions out of Haiti. "Under no circumstances should we evacuate any child newly orphaned or displaced," she wrote in an e-mail to CNN.

"Imagine losing much of your family, only to discover that a surviving relative had been whisked off to the States to be adopted by strangers without your knowledge or consent! Adoptions without consent are child trafficking. Pure and simple."

She has been taking care of children who waited for years in the orphanage to be adopted. "It's a bit sad, as I have several wonderful children who waited literally for years for new families, and no one ever came," she said.

The disaster in Haiti has led to an outpouring of support around the world, with the United States alone donating more than $305 million as of Wednesday, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper covering nonprofit organizations.

Because Haiti's poverty already made it "extremely vulnerable" to exploitation and abuse, rushed adoptions could open the door to traffickers, said World Vision Chief Executive Justin Byworth.

"We are concerned not only about premature overseas adoption but also about children increasingly being sent unaccompanied to the Dominican Republic," he said.

Aid groups said adoptions that were already in progress before the January 12 earthquake should go ahead, as long as the right legal documents are in place and they meet Haitian and international law.

For those who want to help Haitian children, Whitbread said, they should donate to aid agencies that are working on reuniting children with their families.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has opened an office at the headquarters of the Haitian Red Cross in Crois de Prez to help people locate their relatives, said Pete Garratt, a disaster response manager at the British Red Cross.

The Red Cross also has set up a Web site to help people searching for relatives, he said.

CNN's Jessica Ravitz contributed to this report.

Moved to adopt Haitians? It's not always best, experts say - CNN.com

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Haiti earthquake: aid agencies fear child trafficking | World news | guardian.co.uk

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

* Esther Addley
* guardian.co.uk, Friday 22 January 2010 18.56 GMT


[Photo] Haitian Red Cross volunteer Jean Zacharie helps one-month-old Deborah Fatima in Port-au-Prince, where her mother died in the 12 January earthquake. Amid the chaos and destruction, aid agencies fear children missing from hospital may have been stolen by child trafficking gangs. Photograph: Talia Frenkel/AFP/Getty Images

Aid agencies continued to warn against adopting children from Haiti today, amid unconfirmed reports that a number of children who had gone missing from hospitals in the devastated country may have been trafficked.

An adviser for Unicef told reporters that about 15 children had disappeared from hospitals, presumed taken.

Jean Luc Legrand was quoted as saying: "Unicef has been working in Haiti for many years and we knew the problem with the trade of children in Haiti which existed before, and unfortunately many of these trade networks have links with the international adoption 'market'."

A spokesman for the charity said it could not confirm the figures but had referred the reports to the Haitian government, which was investigating. It has stepped up its efforts to ensure all children under five are in a safe place and properly fed by this weekend.

Hannah Reichardt, emergencies adviser for Save the Children, said: "This is why child protection is utmost in our concern at the moment, particularly because we know that child trafficking was already a problem in Haiti before the quake."

She said tracing families was the "primary important thing that we do" at this stage in an emergency, alongside aid distribution. Save the Children is now ­co­-ordinating all family tracing work in Haiti at the request of the UN. Twenty-nine agencies are currently pooling child protection resources in the country.

Both charities have joined other agencies which have warned would-be parents against hasty adoptions of children who would appear to have been orphaned.

Bethany Christian Services, a US adoption agency, said it had received more than 1,000 requests for adoption applications, while the Joint Council on International Children's Services, a US advocacy organisation, said it had received 150 enquiries about Haitian adoption in three days, compared with 10 a month normally.

It said that evacuating children from Haiti at present, even with altruistic motives, was "premature and dangerous".


Haiti earthquake: aid agencies fear child trafficking | World news | guardian.co.uk

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France24 - Child trafficking in Cambodia

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01 January 2009

[TRAFFICKING MONITOR: Be sure to view the video.]

VIDEO

Caring investigates child trafficking in Cambodia. Despite stricter legislation, the problem is still rampant. On one side are parents who want to foster a child, and on the other, Cambodian parents' poverty which pushes them to sell their own.

By FRANCE 24 (text)

Child trafficking, a loose term with negative connotations, is essentially when young offspring are given away to wealthy foreigners in exchange for money.

For lucky adopters, the actual sum is inconsequential. Exhausted after costly and upsetting attempts in their own countries, many gratefully look to smaller, developing nations in their bid to find a child, countries like Cambodia, where widespread poverty forces many locals to consider desperate ways to make ends meet.

Dazzled by the promise of a better life for their loved ones, parents and families readily relinquish control and sign away their offspring. But an increasing number of abuses of the system by rogue adoption agencies has prompted many Western governments to immediately suspend all adoptions of Cambodian children.

In France, the government has only just recently lifted the ban that had been in place for some five years, but French authorities are enforcing stringent tests and vetting on would-be parents.

In Cambodia, there are as yet few laws against the widespread corruption and not enough incentive to make parents stop this tragic practice of selling their children.
Click here to find out more!

France24 - Child trafficking in Cambodia

The Blotter | Teenage pimp sentenced to 17 years in prison | Seattle Times Newspaper

Posted by John de Leon

A Seattle gang member who forced girls into prostitution was sentenced today to 17 years in prison for human trafficking and promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor.

DeShawn "Cash Money" Clark, 19, was the first person in the state to be convicted under a new human trafficking law.

Clark was found guilty in November of second-degree human trafficking, first-degree promoting prostitution, two counts of commercial sex abuse of a minor, unlawful imprisonment and conspiracy to promote prostitution.

He was found not guilty of a second count of second-degree human trafficking, as well as charges of second-degree assault and possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

According to testimony at his trial, Clark is a member of the West Side Street Mobb, a West Seattle gang whose moniker includes an acronym for "Money Over Broke Bitches."

More than 50 witnesses -- half of them law-enforcement officers -- took the stand in Clark's seven-week trial. Roughly 300 exhibits were submitted as evidence, including recorded phone calls from the King County Jail. In one, Clark tells a young prostitute to tell detectives: "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know" when questioned. In another, he tells the woman to get the word out that one of his co-defendants, who'd agreed to testify against Clark, was "a snitch."

Prosecutors said that Clark and his fellow gang members preyed on vulnerable, impressionable girls and sold them a dream, making the girls believe they were loved when really "they were nothing more than a revenue stream."

Five co-defendants involved in the West Side Street Mobb's prostitution enterprise pleaded guilty to a variety of prostitution charges, including Clark's older brother, Shawn Clark.

The Blotter | Teenage pimp sentenced to 17 years in prison | Seattle Times Newspaper

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Ex-stripper testifies at statehouse on bill

Sunday, January 24, 2010
Last updated 10:04 a.m. PT

KOMO-TV STAFF

A young victim of human trafficking is breaking her silence to warn other potential victims as a bill works its way through the state Legislature that would crack down harder on traffickers.

Although there are already crimes against selling kids as prostitutes, proponents of new legislation say the penalties aren't tough enough. They want to change that.

It's a hidden crime ... hidden by the darkness of night ... hidden by the silence of the traffickers and their victims.

But one young victim, Brianna -- whose life was saved from prostitution -- can remain silent no longer.

"If I can save a life with my story it's worth coming out," she said. "Let's look past the shame and the guilt."

Brianna is a straight-A student, from a good family. But the traffickers were able to lure her in, like they've done to thousands of girls -- and young boys.

"They prey on them. They manipulated me, they conned me into thinking I was safe and that they were going to take care of me," she said.

She all of a sudden found herself working in a Seattle strip club.

"They tried to get me into prostitution," she said. "They tried to get me to consider it at least, and they approached me at the strip club, and he offered me $1,000 for an hour."

But a friend found her and got her away from the traffickers just hours before they were sending her to Phoenix, Ariz.

Linda Smith of Project Hope said, "They move them by the event, and there's a lot of money in Phoenix and they typically move a lot of girls into Phoenix and into critical places where young girls can be sold."

Smith, a former congresswoman, works with these kids -- eand so does a Sheila, who herself was a victim. They're all fighting for new legislation.

"If we do something that will deter that behavior I think it won't continue to be the way it is right now," Sheila said.

She says more than 300 girls were trafficked in the Seattle area last year.

"It can happen to anybody," added Brianna.

The bill, SB 6476, now pending in the state Legislature, would raise the penalty for trafficking from $500 up to $5,000.

If a car is used, it could be impounded with a $500 impound fee.

Plus lawmakers are hoping that the publicity of stories like Brianna's will help get these victims to break away.

Ex-stripper testifies at statehouse on bill

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