Molly, one of our interns, has created a survey to gauge community awareness about human trafficking and fair trade products. It would be greatly appreciated if you took this survey and distribute it throughout your online social networks. The more information that we gather, the more useful it will be in deciding our next plan of action!
Thank you so much for your time!
Peter Wilson
Intern
ENC Stop Human Trafficking Now
Holly Smith, the writer of this article, was a victim of child sex trafficking and is making noise so more action is taken. There have been an increasing number of human trafficking cases within the past six months. The Eastern District of Virginia has had several cases alone, some of which were linked to differing gangs. The tactics vary but most go for children with a similar predisposition. Even though there are more cases being reported, does that mean it is expanding or getting more exposure? I believe it is both. If more efforts are not developed for the prevention and rehabilitation of human trafficking, it is going to become a more prominent threat. Smith says that Virginia is not the exception but the rule.
I completely agree due to the misinformation that our society has generated around prostitution. The statistics show that religious orientation does not deter followers of different faiths to employ prostitution services. People see it as a negative aspect of culture but it is the prostitutes right to sell her body within a ‘free,’ capitalist society. People do not realize that they are not enacting their rights but a trafficker’s demand. The male buyer (the ‘John’) usually does not realize the processes and situations the prostitute has been forced through (The ones that do realize would not have the allowance to attend ‘John School’, a topic for the next blog.) One of the main issues is that the American middle class has suffered due to the economic recession. It is within these times that more people are capable of manipulating the inhabitants through a variation of means.
Look at two very prominent examples, Asia and Russia. Russia started increasing trafficking after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Asia’s market collapse created a wave of poverty and desperation, a traffickers dream. The country’s economy was suffering and people were desperate to get jobs and stability. Since there is a need for money, many women seek employment through agencies promising jobs in foreign countries. Though there are legitimate agencies that allow what the girls are hoping for, it is not always the case. Traffickers are able to lure girls into prostitution by employing various methodologies [servile marriage, prostitution]. So we have to teach them young, right? Let’s stop cutting school budgets and introduce new programs that help human trafficking awareness and prevention through direct and indirect means.
M.S., another survivor of human trafficking, tells her story and how her teachers were a beacon of hope. The issue is that teachers and social workers typically do not know the criteria or understanding to identify a victim of sex trafficking. Virginia has implemented a program to teach teachers and social workers the skills to identify and converse with a trafficked victim.
If a person does not know the right questions to ask, it very difficult to identify the case as human trafficking due to their mental ailments induced by the trafficker.
The traffickers use this to their advantage, utilizing the police force as an inhibitor by turning in the victim and forcing them to stay in jail for months at a time. It is commonly known that in the U.S. [NV excluded], prostitutes were arrested with the charge ‘crime against nature.’ The way the media has portrayed prostitutes is not helping those that are forced into its dark, daily routine. We all need to work hard to get programs like Virginia’s in North Carolina!
As the video “The Quest to End Child Trafficking” states, advocacy groups and grassroots are the most auspicious for change in human trafficking laws and the rehabilitation of its victims. Let’s work together and make this community one where prostitution and trafficking is no longer prevalent. There are many things you can do to help the battle against modern-day slavery. Support programs, buy fair trade items, talk to a friend about human trafficking and research the issues and threats in your area!
NCGS Chapter 14 Article 10A: The definition and ramifications of human trafficking in NC
Article read by and inspired:
Peter Wilson
ENC Stop Human Trafficking
Intern [Anthropology]
A decade ago, Susana Trimarco’s 23-year-old daughter left her house in Tucuman, Argentina for a doctor’s appointment and said: “I’ll be back soon.”
She was never to be seen again.
Her daughter, María de los Angeles Verón, is believed to have been kidnapped and forced into prostitution, becoming one of the millions of human trafficking victims in the world.
That began Trimarco’s remarkable and dangerous mission to find her daughter: Chasing down leads in brothels, confronting pimps and standing up to politicians she says were complicit in her daughter’s disappearance.
Following a tip that her daughter was in a brothel in a northwestern province of Argentina called La Rioja, she posed as a prostitute and visited a series of dark and dangerous brothels looking for her daughter. She wanted to see how the networks operate, first hand and up close.
“I have no fear of this mafia, and I hope that Justice will make justice,” she said in court recently.
Her efforts, which have brought her international recognition –and kudos from the U.S. White House to Canada – have uncovered a network of human sex slave traffickers that reached as far away as Spain. A foundation Trimarco created in her daughter’s name has helped to rescue 150 victims of human trafficking around the world.
Her her daughter is not one of them. But Trimarco has never given up hope.
This month, 10 years after her Verón’s disappearance, seven men and six women accused of having been part of the network that kidnapped and forced her daughter into prostitution are finally being brought to trial.
Mexico’s lower house unanimously passed an anti-human-trafficking bill that establishes preventative and punitive measures and provides aid to victims of that crime.
The bill includes prison sentences of up to 40 years for those convicted of sexual exploitation and abuse and creates a fund to offer care to victims, the Chamber of Deputies said Friday in a statement.
The head of the Special Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, Congresswoman Rosi Orozco of the governing National Action Party, or PAN, said the bill goes after the entire chain of exploitation, from the people who entrap victims to those who hold them against their will and exploit them and even clients of sexual services.
“Not one more victim will have to endure injustice; the entire chain of exploitation will be punished and comprehensive care will be provided to victims to ensure their social reinsertion,” Orozco said.
The Senate had earlier modified the original bill, whose wording could have been interpreted as only providing protection to minors and leaving out the vast majority of the real and potential victims of human trafficking in its different forms.
Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/04/28/mexico-congress-approves-bill-to-combat-human-trafficking/#ixzz1tXCeMq3e
In 2007, New York legislators approved one of the more expansive sex trafficking laws in the country — a law that, outside of New York City, has rarely been used.
Through late March there had been 145 sex trafficking arrests in New York under the bill signed into law in 2007 — and all but 13 were in New York City.
That means 91 percent of the arrests occurred in New York City, and only one person has been convicted for sex trafficking outside of the city.
Experts say there are multiple reasons why the law has so rarely been wielded: It is still a relatively new tool; many cases end up in federal court; and trafficking investigations can be difficult to build, especially because of reluctant victims.
“I think it’s a really slow process, but I do think we’re moving in the right direction,” said Lauren Hersh, a Brooklyn assistant district attorney who has been one of the state’s leaders in sex trafficking prosecutions.
Westchester Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, one of the anti-trafficking leaders in the Legislature, said the law may still be too new to critique for effectiveness.
“It’s relatively new,” she said. “The crimes of murder and robbery have been around a long time.”
But, some say, the biggest impediment to toughened anti-trafficking law enforcement may be the long-held belief that a prostitute is, first and foremost, a criminal.
EU authorities said Thursday they will be on watch for a spike in customs fraud and human trafficking during the European football championship, as the bloc’s border lies between hosts Poland andUkraine.
“The challenge for border guards at events like Euro 2012 is the management of large passenger flows across the borders,” said Gil Arias Fernandez, deputy head of European Union border agency Frontex.
“Our risk analyses say that criminal networks may try to hide the smuggling of cigarettes, petrol, et cetera, as well as stolen vehicles, taking advantage of the increased traffic at border crossing points,” he told reporters.
“There is also a risk of concealing the traffic of human beings in the midst of these flows, mainly women for prostitution purposes,” he added.
On Monday, Poland announced that during the championship, which runs from June 8 to July 1, it would reintroduce controls on its borders with EU neighbours Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania.
Such checks were dropped in December 2007 when Poland joined Europe’s travel-smoothingSchengen zone, which now comprises 26 countries, including several non-EU members.
Schengen rules allow members to resume border controls in certain cases, notably when large numbers are expected to flock into a country — and Euro 2012 is expected to draw more than a million people.
If you have heard anything about the worldwide human trafficking crisis, you’ve likely heard this statistic: over 30 million people are victims of trafficking in the world today.
That number is overwhelming. It’s the equivalent of putting the entire nation of Peru–plus a few–in slavery. It can be difficult to know where to even begin to tackle a country-sized problem that’s spread out to every nation in the world.
But Operation Mobilization has found one small, yet significant way for families to do something about it: the Freedom Climb.
Sharon Scott went on OM’s last Freedom Climb up Tanzania’s famous Mt. Kilimanjaro. She and 47 other women climbed the 19,000-foot mountain to raise awareness and funds for OM projects fighting trafficking. The trek raised over $400,000 for OM to prevent trafficking and spread the Gospel across the globe.
“We have [projects in] India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Zambia, Asia, Nearest, Middle East, Costa Rica, Mozambique, Cambodia, and Argentina,” says Scott. Funds went to assist all of these.
OM is recreating this climb in several new places now. The Kilimanjaro climb took a great deal of commitment and strength. It would be quite a feat for a family to do it together. Freedom Climb Atlanta, however, is on a much smaller scale, suitable for families.
Men account for 41% of adult human trafficking victims in England and Wales, according to the Salvation Army.
Men account for more than two-fifths (41%) of adult victims of human trafficking in England and Wales helped by the Salvation Army, contrary to the public perception that the crime almost exclusively affects women.
The finding comes in a survey by the charity, which provides specialist support for the adult victims of trafficking on behalf of the Ministry of Justice.
The Salvation Army, which began the support service six months ago, also dealt with the first recorded case of an individual being trafficked to Britain to have their organs harvested. The case, involving an unnamed woman brought to the UK by an organised gang, is understood to be the subject of a police investigation, the Telegraph reports.
The charity’s survey found that 45% of those it supported had been forced into sexual exploitation, 43% were involved in labour exploitation and 8% were trafficked into domestic servitude.
This contradicted a survey of English and Welsh adults carried out by YouGov, which found that respondents thought 29% of all trafficked victims in England and Wales were male, and 68% of all trafficked victims were sexually exploited.
Details about what happened last week at the Hotel Caribe remained murky Saturday. At least 11 Secret Service agents and five military members faced discipline, however.
The U.S. Secret Service on Saturday placed 11 agents on administrative leave as the agency investigates accusations the men brought prostitutes to their hotel rooms in Cartagena, Colombia, last week and a dispute ensued with one woman over payment.
In addition, five U.S. military service members who were working with the Secret Service agents were confined to quarters and are facing an investigation.
Secret Service Assistant Director Paul Morrissey said the officers had violated the agency’s “zero-tolerance policy on personal misconduct” during their trip to prepare for President Obama’s arrival at an international summit this weekend.
“We regret any distraction from the Summit of the Americas this situation has caused,” Morrissey said Saturday.
The rapidly unfolding scandal upstaged Obama’s trip to the summit, where he is discussing trade and the economy with 32 other regional heads of state. Though the agency has said Obama’s security was not compromised, the accusations of misconduct have brought intense scrutiny to an agency that had not had any major lapse since 2009, when two party crashers entered the White House uninvited.
The scandal grew Saturday as Defense Department officials said the five military personnel, also staying at the Hotel Caribe — where the Secret Service agents stayed — violated curfew Wednesday night and were confined to their rooms. The department will conduct its own investigation upon their return to the United States, said Gen. Douglas Fraser, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, where the military personnel were from.
A suspected sex trafficking ring in which girls as young as 11 were allegedly targeted was far larger than previously feared, according to police.
As many as 50 young girls have come forward claiming to have been sold for sex in Oxford, detective confirmed today.
It was originally thought that 24 girls, aged between 11 and 16 years, were the only victims but more youngsters have since contacted the police alleging they were also victims.
A total of 13 men were arrested when more than 100 police swooped in the raids across Oxford, codenamed Operation Bullfinch.
A group of six Asian men – including two sets of brothers – have been charged by police in connection with allegedly running the sex trafficking ring in the university city known for its dreaming spires.
Since the initial dawn raids last month, officers had made a further two arrests as part of the probe, a police spokesman said.
A 39-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman were detained on suspicion of ‘grooming’ this week.
Read more …
Eastern NC Stop Human Trafficking Now 