1. Worldwide, how serious is this problem? (Use statistics and specific quotes from experts to show the extent of the problem.)
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press_release_2006_04_24.html
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20071012041203336C203990
2. What are the stats for trafficking in Canada and United States?
http://www.justice.gc.ca/en/fs/ht/q&a.html
3. What happens to the victims? (You should find at least 3 personal stories to show what typically happens.)
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1596778
http://www.unodc.org/newsletter/en/200501/page008.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3256428n
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/26/human-trafficking.html#skip300x250
4. How does trafficking work?
http://www.worldrevolution.org/Projects/Webguide/GuideArticle.asp?ID=1413
5. What are the main reasons of human trafficking?
http://www.helpsavekids.org/scope2.html
http://www.nwasianweekly.com/200726037/traffick20072637.htm
6. What can be done to protect people from being trafficked?
http://www.unicef.org.nz/school-room/child-labour/what-can-be-done-child-labour.html
7. What the UN and other organizations do to stop the human trafficking?
http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2005/Mar/11-774347.html
Monday, October 22, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Why it's difficult to prosecute sex trafficking in the United States?
There are many reasons why it's difficult to prosecute sex trafficking in the United States. First of all, it is hard to get the cooperation of the victims. Just as Anna Rodriguez, the founder of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, says “The unwillingness of victims to cooperate with the authorities is one of the biggest obstacles in putting criminals behind bars.” Another reason why it's difficult to prosecute sex trafficking is that it takes a long time to get the offenders through the legal process. As George Collins, a criminal intelligence specialist at the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, claims that: "Unfortunately in this country, we have this little thing called the Constitution that says that someone has the right to face their accuser in court. We rely on that testimony to prove our case.”
Works Cited
Donohue Patrick. “Human Trafficking: a million-dollar industry in Destin” Florida Freedom Newspapers 22 Sept. 2007 15 Oct. 2007
Works Cited
Donohue Patrick. “Human Trafficking: a million-dollar industry in Destin” Florida Freedom Newspapers 22 Sept. 2007 15 Oct. 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Difficulties of Prosecuting Sex Trafficking
Prosecuting sex trafficking become more difficult due to the loopholes of law in U.S.
First, the applicable law is not strict enough to stop the sex trafficking. George Collins, a criminal intelligence specialist at the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, stated that:” worker exploitation cases are handled in a civil and administrative manner,in accordance with U.S. labor law.”
Second, the legal procedures of arrests and prosecution take a long time. “… There’s surveillance that’s done and you have multiple jurisdictions and you have to wait to get an indictment, and sometimes you won’t see an arrest in these cases for six weeks,” Anna Rodriguez, the founder of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, complained that.
First, the applicable law is not strict enough to stop the sex trafficking. George Collins, a criminal intelligence specialist at the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, stated that:” worker exploitation cases are handled in a civil and administrative manner,in accordance with U.S. labor law.”
Second, the legal procedures of arrests and prosecution take a long time. “… There’s surveillance that’s done and you have multiple jurisdictions and you have to wait to get an indictment, and sometimes you won’t see an arrest in these cases for six weeks,” Anna Rodriguez, the founder of the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking, complained that.
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Human trafficking has come to Minnesota
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/03/13/trafficking/
Putting the red light on human trafficking
Saturday, Sept. 29, 2007
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
By THOMASINA LARKIN
Staff writer
"Neary grew up in rural Cambodia. Her parents died when she was a child, and in an effort to give her a better life, her sister married her off when she was 17. Three months later, they went to visit a fishing village. Her husband rented a room in what Neary thought was a guest house. But when she woke the next morning, her husband was gone.
The Kabukicho district in Tokyo's Shinjuku is a sex-industry center. PHOTO COURTESY OF POLARIS PROJECT
"The owner of the house told her she had been sold by her husband for $300 and that she was actually in a brothel. For five years, Neary was raped by five to seven men every day. In addition to brutal physical abuse, Neary was infected with HIV and contracted AIDS.
"The brothel threw her out when she became sick, and she eventually found her way to a local shelter. She died of HIV/AIDS at the age of 23."
Neary's story, posted on Georgetown University's Web site, is just one of a portion of such stories that actually get reported each year.
Hundreds of thousands of other stories are never heard, and remain cloaked in the dark underworld of human trafficking — a world Shihoko Fujiwara first heard about while attending college in the U.S. in 2004.
"I learned about the internal trafficking of Thai women to foreigners, to men from Germany or America or Japan," Fujiwara says, adding that the status of women in her home country then started to become more obvious to her. "That's when the issue became personal for me. Every time I came back to Japan, I felt so pressured. Society expects women to be feminine and submissive."
Fujiwara realized that this form of passivity was just a scratch on the surface of a much larger issue, one into which she felt compelled to dig deeper.
She searched the Internet for organizations in the U.S. that help combat the sex slave industry and she soon found Polaris Project, which just happened to be looking for Japanese-speaking volunteers to help launch a Tokyo branch.
Fujiwara's dedication was put to the test from the get-go.
"I worked all day at Polaris and during the night I worked at a restaurant," Fujiwara says. "I saw the development of the antitrafficking movement in the U.S., and then after a year I was finally able to come back to Japan to launch Polaris here."
Humantrafficking.org reported in 2005 that an estimated 150,000 trafficking victims could be working in Japan, according to the Switzerland-based International Organization for Migration.
It wasn't long before Fujiwara would find herself flooded with work.
Since 2005, Fujiwara has brought on 40 more volunteers and interns, started a multilingual outreach hotline, held seminars across the country, advocated for better antitrafficking laws, organized workshops with police officers and embassies, run awareness-raising campaigns on college campuses and helped raise awareness among the victims themselves.
"When we met this one woman, she had called us three times before she finally trusted us and understood that she was being trafficked," Fujiwara says.
"Her brothel owner was forcing her to sleep with women and men and if she failed to do so she threatened her: 'If you don't go out with these people, I'll tell your family in your home country what you're doing here — selling your body — and your family will reject you," Fujiwara recalls of one of more than 340 cases Polaris Japan has heard. "She was psychologically controlled by her traffickers."
For the first couple of years, all of Polaris' clients in Japan were foreign women. But Fujiwara decided last year to start focusing on Japanese women.
"There's a lot of gender inequality here. It's a culture of seeing women as sex objects," Fujiwara says. "If you look at men's magazines, you always see naked women. Even women's and teen's magazines have strange info on how to be loved by your boyfriend, or how to please your man, which gives readers the wrong ideas about sex.
"I just want to have a healthy and safe environment for women and men," she says, adding that Polaris teaches about how condoms protect against STDs and that women should wait until they're ready to have sex. "All these things are so connected to adults, who are uncomfortable talking about sex and who learn about it from magazines, which are violent and objectify women. Men see those magazines and they go to sex parlors."
However, after two years of research, Fujiwara still finds it difficult to make contact with Japanese victims.
"The sex industry here is so much under the realm of entertainment," she says. "Women are being told that their job is fun, easy and that they can make money instantly for clothes and bags or debts. They're being glorified in media such as TV and magazines.
"I'm not against women's work," Fujiwara says. "I'm just so afraid the industry tries to hide the reality of the exploited women."
Fujiwara hopes a photo exhibition called "Human Trafficking — Unrecognized Reality" Oct. 12-13 at the Tokyo Women's Plaza Forum in Shibuya, Tokyo, will help further shed some light onto the shady underworld of human trafficking.
To report a human-trafficking case, call 0120-879-871. For more information about Polaris, visit www.PolarisProject.jp More information about the photo exhibit can be found (in Japanese only) at www.tokyo-womens-plaza.metro.tokyo.jp/contents/seminar2_07082801.html
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
By THOMASINA LARKIN
Staff writer
"Neary grew up in rural Cambodia. Her parents died when she was a child, and in an effort to give her a better life, her sister married her off when she was 17. Three months later, they went to visit a fishing village. Her husband rented a room in what Neary thought was a guest house. But when she woke the next morning, her husband was gone.
The Kabukicho district in Tokyo's Shinjuku is a sex-industry center. PHOTO COURTESY OF POLARIS PROJECT
"The owner of the house told her she had been sold by her husband for $300 and that she was actually in a brothel. For five years, Neary was raped by five to seven men every day. In addition to brutal physical abuse, Neary was infected with HIV and contracted AIDS.
"The brothel threw her out when she became sick, and she eventually found her way to a local shelter. She died of HIV/AIDS at the age of 23."
Neary's story, posted on Georgetown University's Web site, is just one of a portion of such stories that actually get reported each year.
Hundreds of thousands of other stories are never heard, and remain cloaked in the dark underworld of human trafficking — a world Shihoko Fujiwara first heard about while attending college in the U.S. in 2004.
"I learned about the internal trafficking of Thai women to foreigners, to men from Germany or America or Japan," Fujiwara says, adding that the status of women in her home country then started to become more obvious to her. "That's when the issue became personal for me. Every time I came back to Japan, I felt so pressured. Society expects women to be feminine and submissive."
Fujiwara realized that this form of passivity was just a scratch on the surface of a much larger issue, one into which she felt compelled to dig deeper.
She searched the Internet for organizations in the U.S. that help combat the sex slave industry and she soon found Polaris Project, which just happened to be looking for Japanese-speaking volunteers to help launch a Tokyo branch.
Fujiwara's dedication was put to the test from the get-go.
"I worked all day at Polaris and during the night I worked at a restaurant," Fujiwara says. "I saw the development of the antitrafficking movement in the U.S., and then after a year I was finally able to come back to Japan to launch Polaris here."
Humantrafficking.org reported in 2005 that an estimated 150,000 trafficking victims could be working in Japan, according to the Switzerland-based International Organization for Migration.
It wasn't long before Fujiwara would find herself flooded with work.
Since 2005, Fujiwara has brought on 40 more volunteers and interns, started a multilingual outreach hotline, held seminars across the country, advocated for better antitrafficking laws, organized workshops with police officers and embassies, run awareness-raising campaigns on college campuses and helped raise awareness among the victims themselves.
"When we met this one woman, she had called us three times before she finally trusted us and understood that she was being trafficked," Fujiwara says.
"Her brothel owner was forcing her to sleep with women and men and if she failed to do so she threatened her: 'If you don't go out with these people, I'll tell your family in your home country what you're doing here — selling your body — and your family will reject you," Fujiwara recalls of one of more than 340 cases Polaris Japan has heard. "She was psychologically controlled by her traffickers."
For the first couple of years, all of Polaris' clients in Japan were foreign women. But Fujiwara decided last year to start focusing on Japanese women.
"There's a lot of gender inequality here. It's a culture of seeing women as sex objects," Fujiwara says. "If you look at men's magazines, you always see naked women. Even women's and teen's magazines have strange info on how to be loved by your boyfriend, or how to please your man, which gives readers the wrong ideas about sex.
"I just want to have a healthy and safe environment for women and men," she says, adding that Polaris teaches about how condoms protect against STDs and that women should wait until they're ready to have sex. "All these things are so connected to adults, who are uncomfortable talking about sex and who learn about it from magazines, which are violent and objectify women. Men see those magazines and they go to sex parlors."
However, after two years of research, Fujiwara still finds it difficult to make contact with Japanese victims.
"The sex industry here is so much under the realm of entertainment," she says. "Women are being told that their job is fun, easy and that they can make money instantly for clothes and bags or debts. They're being glorified in media such as TV and magazines.
"I'm not against women's work," Fujiwara says. "I'm just so afraid the industry tries to hide the reality of the exploited women."
Fujiwara hopes a photo exhibition called "Human Trafficking — Unrecognized Reality" Oct. 12-13 at the Tokyo Women's Plaza Forum in Shibuya, Tokyo, will help further shed some light onto the shady underworld of human trafficking.
To report a human-trafficking case, call 0120-879-871. For more information about Polaris, visit www.PolarisProject.jp More information about the photo exhibit can be found (in Japanese only) at www.tokyo-womens-plaza.metro.tokyo.jp/contents/seminar2_07082801.html
Monday, October 1, 2007
With scars that will never heal, one woman fights human trafficking
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/21/business/traffic.php
With scars that will never heal, one woman fights human trafficking
By Elisabetta Povoledo
Published: September 21, 2007
document.writeln('');
AOSTA, Italy: When Isoke Aikpitanyi boarded a plane in Benin City, Nigeria, she dreamed of a new life in Europe. She found a nightmare instead.
In debt and in the grips of human traffickers, Aikpitanyi began working as a prostitute on the streets of Turin.
She was jeered at, humiliated, raped, beaten and nearly stabbed to death.
"You can't imagine before you come that you're going to end up a slave," Aikpitanyi said in an interview in the elegant main square of Aosta, where she now lives. "You don't realize that the world has returned to an era of slavery."
Her story mirrors that of tens of thousands of women from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe who have been lured to the West by the prospect of well-paid work as salesclerks or in factories.
Once there, however, many find that the organizations they used to handle the travel arrangements had criminal intentions in mind.
Documents are withheld. Women find themselves isolated and are frightened into thinking that they will be deported if they turn to the authorities for help.
Many are forced into prostitution, especially - as Aikpitanyi discovered to her horror - if there is a substantial travel debt to repay (€30,000, or $42,000, in her case) and a large family back home to support.
But three years after Aikpitanyi's nightmare started in 2000, she plucked up her courage and escaped.
She renegotiated her debt and moved in with a man - a former client - who had begun to counsel men about sex addiction.
Word traveled fast on the street. Former colleagues began showing up on her doorstep, asking for help. She took them in.
Laura Maragnani, a journalist with the news weekly Panorama, met her and they collaborated on a book, "The Girls of Benin City," which was published in March and is now in its second printing.
Aikpitanyi has met with top officials of the Italian government and has presented the book in dozens of venues.
She has spent countless hours talking to prostitutes across the country, showing them that a way out exists. She is looking for funding so that her ad hoc halfway home can become more institutionalized, and offer more privacy.
"I made a promise with myself that I would help them, as a sort of therapy to heal a wound I know will never heal," Aikpitanyi said. "Sometimes all they need is someone to listen."
In recent weeks, rounding up prostitutes - and fining young men who try to wash windshield at traffic lights - has started a heated political debate in Italy on security.
"It seems to me that when politicians say it's time to clean up the streets they're washing their hand of the situation rather than tackling the real problem, which is trafficking," Aikpitanyi said angrily. "Once again, it's the victim who ends up paying."
There are no statistics on the number of prostitutes in Italy who came to the country hoping for better lives. Maragnani, Aikpitanyi's co-author, who frequently writes about human trafficking, said that various unofficial estimates put the number somewhere between 10,000 and 35,000. "But no one can really say," she said, because there are no reliable statistics on illegal immigrants.
There are no statistics either on the number of prostitutes who are raped or who die on the streets.
"When an Italian woman gets raped, people care," Aikpitanyi said. "When it happens to a black woman or a foreigner it's like, well, she had it coming to her. They don't even look for the rapist."
Compared with many countries, Italian legislation in support of women trying to escape sexual exportation is very advanced, experts who study human trafficking say.
A 1998 law encourages, but does not force, women to testify against their traffickers before they receive assistance, which includes a six-month renewable residence permit to look for legitimate work, as well as training opportunities.
Most national legislatures require women to press criminal charges before they receive assistance.
The law is "designed to help victims gain charge of their lives," said Eva Biaudet, who is responsible for combating trafficking in human beings for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. She works in Vienna. "It's more positive about their future survival in general, and that means there's less risk of being re-trafficked."
What remains worrying, Biaudet said, was the amount of trafficking. "The supply is endless." she said.
A study carried out this year by the Italian government of the program that assists sexually exploited women indicates that over a six-year period starting in 2000, more than 45,000 women, mostly from Nigeria and Eastern Europe, received some sort of social assistance here. About 11,500 entered into a protection program and half of those received a residency permit.
"The law doesn't judge the victim and gives her a chance to recover physically and psychologically," said Alessandra Barberi, who coordinates the assistance program.
But Maragnani, the journalist, said that while the law may be advanced, "it's generally not applied." She said that final decisions over what assistance is offered are left to the discretion of local police departments, so there is no consistency. Moreover, few traffickers end up in prison and clients rarely face charges, "even though many prostitutes are underage and it's illegal to have sex with a minor in Italy."
These days, Aikpitanyi dreams of inaugurating her home for women, of getting married, of having a child. On the surface, life is good.
But her book implies otherwise. She writes: "Outside I am calm and strong and I try to fix things. But inside, instead, nothing is right. Not even for me. Inside I am full of rage, and shame. Because I am here and I am alive." Others, she goes on, did not make it.
With scars that will never heal, one woman fights human trafficking
By Elisabetta Povoledo
Published: September 21, 2007
document.writeln('');
AOSTA, Italy: When Isoke Aikpitanyi boarded a plane in Benin City, Nigeria, she dreamed of a new life in Europe. She found a nightmare instead.
In debt and in the grips of human traffickers, Aikpitanyi began working as a prostitute on the streets of Turin.
She was jeered at, humiliated, raped, beaten and nearly stabbed to death.
"You can't imagine before you come that you're going to end up a slave," Aikpitanyi said in an interview in the elegant main square of Aosta, where she now lives. "You don't realize that the world has returned to an era of slavery."
Her story mirrors that of tens of thousands of women from Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe who have been lured to the West by the prospect of well-paid work as salesclerks or in factories.
Once there, however, many find that the organizations they used to handle the travel arrangements had criminal intentions in mind.
Documents are withheld. Women find themselves isolated and are frightened into thinking that they will be deported if they turn to the authorities for help.
Many are forced into prostitution, especially - as Aikpitanyi discovered to her horror - if there is a substantial travel debt to repay (€30,000, or $42,000, in her case) and a large family back home to support.
But three years after Aikpitanyi's nightmare started in 2000, she plucked up her courage and escaped.
She renegotiated her debt and moved in with a man - a former client - who had begun to counsel men about sex addiction.
Word traveled fast on the street. Former colleagues began showing up on her doorstep, asking for help. She took them in.
Laura Maragnani, a journalist with the news weekly Panorama, met her and they collaborated on a book, "The Girls of Benin City," which was published in March and is now in its second printing.
Aikpitanyi has met with top officials of the Italian government and has presented the book in dozens of venues.
She has spent countless hours talking to prostitutes across the country, showing them that a way out exists. She is looking for funding so that her ad hoc halfway home can become more institutionalized, and offer more privacy.
"I made a promise with myself that I would help them, as a sort of therapy to heal a wound I know will never heal," Aikpitanyi said. "Sometimes all they need is someone to listen."
In recent weeks, rounding up prostitutes - and fining young men who try to wash windshield at traffic lights - has started a heated political debate in Italy on security.
"It seems to me that when politicians say it's time to clean up the streets they're washing their hand of the situation rather than tackling the real problem, which is trafficking," Aikpitanyi said angrily. "Once again, it's the victim who ends up paying."
There are no statistics on the number of prostitutes in Italy who came to the country hoping for better lives. Maragnani, Aikpitanyi's co-author, who frequently writes about human trafficking, said that various unofficial estimates put the number somewhere between 10,000 and 35,000. "But no one can really say," she said, because there are no reliable statistics on illegal immigrants.
There are no statistics either on the number of prostitutes who are raped or who die on the streets.
"When an Italian woman gets raped, people care," Aikpitanyi said. "When it happens to a black woman or a foreigner it's like, well, she had it coming to her. They don't even look for the rapist."
Compared with many countries, Italian legislation in support of women trying to escape sexual exportation is very advanced, experts who study human trafficking say.
A 1998 law encourages, but does not force, women to testify against their traffickers before they receive assistance, which includes a six-month renewable residence permit to look for legitimate work, as well as training opportunities.
Most national legislatures require women to press criminal charges before they receive assistance.
The law is "designed to help victims gain charge of their lives," said Eva Biaudet, who is responsible for combating trafficking in human beings for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. She works in Vienna. "It's more positive about their future survival in general, and that means there's less risk of being re-trafficked."
What remains worrying, Biaudet said, was the amount of trafficking. "The supply is endless." she said.
A study carried out this year by the Italian government of the program that assists sexually exploited women indicates that over a six-year period starting in 2000, more than 45,000 women, mostly from Nigeria and Eastern Europe, received some sort of social assistance here. About 11,500 entered into a protection program and half of those received a residency permit.
"The law doesn't judge the victim and gives her a chance to recover physically and psychologically," said Alessandra Barberi, who coordinates the assistance program.
But Maragnani, the journalist, said that while the law may be advanced, "it's generally not applied." She said that final decisions over what assistance is offered are left to the discretion of local police departments, so there is no consistency. Moreover, few traffickers end up in prison and clients rarely face charges, "even though many prostitutes are underage and it's illegal to have sex with a minor in Italy."
These days, Aikpitanyi dreams of inaugurating her home for women, of getting married, of having a child. On the surface, life is good.
But her book implies otherwise. She writes: "Outside I am calm and strong and I try to fix things. But inside, instead, nothing is right. Not even for me. Inside I am full of rage, and shame. Because I am here and I am alive." Others, she goes on, did not make it.
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