Report Exposes Egyptian Christian Women Forced Into Muslim Marriages
Published November 12, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
A new report released by Egyptian women right's activist Nadia Ghaly and anti-trafficking specialist (and guest blogger here) Michele Clark has uncovered an insidious system of the kidnapping of Christian (known as Coptic in Egypt) women. These women are forced to marry Muslim men and in many cases convert to Islam. It's a practice which meets the international definition of human trafficking, but is also a serious issue of violence against women.
Exemplary of this phenomenon is the story of a woman identified as “R.” At 17, she received a phone call from a polite young man who said his name was Amir and that he admired her. He asked her to meet him at a local church. When she arrived, however, she was drugged and kidnapped. When she woke up “Amir” told her she would have to marry a stranger, a Muslim man named Mahmoud. When she refused to have sex with Mahmoud, his family held her down while he raped her. As a result of the rape, she is now unable to have children.
Human Trafficking Officially a Mainstream Issue
Published November 11, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Human trafficking has been officially declared a mainstream issue. By me. Just now on this blog. What gives me the right to move this cause from the "niche" box where it has sat so comfortably for over a decade to the "mainstream" box where the big causes like global warming and world peace dwell? Because human trafficking is officially everywhere in the mainstream media. Yep. Everywhere.
The media life of human trafficking was nascent for much of the 1990s. Sure, there was a news article here or there about some poor Ukrainian girl who was brought to America to work as a waitress and then forced into prostitution, but these were presented as isolated and unique cases. Then sometime around the change of millennium, the issue began to pick up traction. Newspapers reported stories on not just isolated cases of trafficking, but individual stories that are part of a global phenomenon of exploitation. Patterns were recognized and connections were made between cases of people trafficked into commercial sex and other industries, like agriculture and factory work. Between 2000 and 2004, a great deal of attention was paid to modern-day slavery as something that happens in the developing wold, from the brothels of Thailand to the brick fields of India to the cocoa plantations of Cote d'Ivoire.
Sometime in the middle of the decade, Americans (and American media outlets) began to look internally for human trafficking. And they found it.
To Better Know a Country: Human Trafficking In New Zealand
Published November 11, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Every year, the U.S. State Department releases a Trafficking in Persons report which rates countries on their efforts to combat human trafficking. Each week, I'll be providing a brief glance at human trafficking in one of those countries, based off the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report, with my own (often snarky) analysis added. This is just a snapshot of what's going on in the country. For more information, you can check out the full text of the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report here.
This Week's Country..... New Zealand
Basic Stats
- Ranking: Tier1
- Status: Source and destination country for trafficking victims
- Political Stability: Ruled by wizards, but populated by all the diverse creatures of Middle Earth
- Cash Flow: The Gandalf and Friends tour package accounts for 62% of the GDP.
- Do I Think They Care?: Yes, and it shows.
Who Are the Victims and What Are They Doing?
- Women: commercial sex, agricultural labor
- Girls: commercial sex
- Men: agricultural labor
Swedish Prostitution Model Moves to Illinois
Published November 10, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Residents of the greater Chicago area are about to have more in common with Sweden than just a local Ikea and winters that can freeze important body parts off. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart (yes, the same guy who sued Craigslist for promoting the prostitution of minors) is revising his approach to prostitution, and implementing a state-wide version of "the Swedish model," as demand-focused criminalized prostitution policy has come to be called. Ambassador Lagon from Polaris Project has a great op-ed on this topic; he's optimistic, and I'm a little more cautiously anticipatory.
If you're not familiar with Swedish prostitution law, here's a quick summary. The change in policy Dart is bringing to Illinois is slightly different from what happened in Sweden in 1999, in that no legislation will actually be changed. Instead, police resources which have previously been directed towards arresting (and releasing and rearresting and re-releasing) women and girls for prostitution will now be directed at arresting the men who buy them. Women caught in the act of prostitution, which remains illegal, will instead be diverted to social services designed to give them a way out of prostitution and other viable economic options. No word on what will happen to women who refuse to participate in the social service programs, but I guess a revolving door of social services is at least an improvement over a revolving door of jail and a criminal record.
Lagon points out the success this model of law has seen in reducing prostitution in Sweden, as well as some of the criticisms its received, including blame for an increased rate of STDs in the shrinking pool of women in prostitution. And while I strongly support the idea of focusing law enforcement resources on the buyers of commercial sex instead of the sellers, I have some concerns about implementing "the Swedish model" in Illinois or anywhere else in the U.S. The U.S. isn't Sweden, and here's why:
Red Light Special: Free the Slaves Bookmark for Activist Readers
Published November 10, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Are you sick of wasting your money on useless plastic crap made in overseas sweatshops? Do you want to use your money to vote for something you actually support - a hopeful future for former slaves? Then check out Change.org's weekly Red Light Special. Once a week, I'll be bringing you a product that heals rather than hurts, because the proceeds go to help victims of human trafficking. Shop Red Light Specials to be part of the solution, instead of part of the useless crap problem.
This Week’s Red Light Special… Free the Slaves Bookmarks
This beautiful, etched metal bookmark features one of Martin Luther King, Jr's most significant quotes, "Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" It also includes Free the Slaves' logo and a decorative black cord to help you find your place easily. This bookmark is a great way to remind yourself of the goal of serving others when you read, or a nice addition to a gift of a book about human trafficking this holiday season.
Let's face it, you don't need any more stuff in your life, but human trafficking survivors sure need a future. And you can give it to them with just a click of the mouse and a swipe of the credit card. So what are you waiting for?
You can buy this item from the link above, or at http://freetheslaves.madebysurvivors.com/product-p/fts19.htm.
Emma Thompson's Journey Into Abolition
Published November 09, 2009 @ 03:47PM PT
Human trafficking victims have a well-informed and intelligent celebrity advocate who doesn't show her underwear in public. I'll wait while you pick your chin off the floor. The newest hero of the modern-day abolitionist movement is award-winning British actress Emma Thompson. Thompson is not new to human rights advocacy or even anti-trafficking advocacy. But she is going above and beyond just using her celebrity to bring attention to this issue and using her well-endowed noggin.
Thompson recently opened an art exhibit called Journey, which is meant to draw attention to the issue of trafficking of women and girls into commercial sex. But the mature and nuanced analysis which Thompson brings to her characters on stage and screen also shows through in her approach to human trafficking. Journey presents trafficking as not just an international phenomenon, but a local one which happens where we live, even in the U.S. and UK. Case in point -- Thompson got involved in the fight for abolition when she discovered a massage parlor on her street was trafficking women. And if I had to guess, I'm gonna guess Emma Thompson doesn't live in a shady, low-rent part of London. Journey drives home the point that slavery in prostitution and commercial sex is not just happening on the other side of the world, it's happening in your community.
Iraqi War Widows and Orphans Have Few Options But Prostitution
Published November 08, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
The war in Iraq and the continuation of violence has had devastating effects on Iraqi families, particularly women and children. As is often the case in areas of conflict, the wives and female children of men killed in the war, whether civilians or soldiers, find themselves with no way to support themselves. With no other viable choices, they are forced to turn to prostitution as a source of income.
CNN recently told the story of Wedad, who entered into prostitution after her husband was killed in order to feed herself and her three daughters. Here's Wedad's story, with more after the jump.
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Amanda Kloer
Shelton Green
ECPAT-USA
Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International (CATW)
