Government & Legal Efforts on Human Trafficking
Texas Battles Rep as Human Trafficking Hub
Published August 07, 2009 @ 08:06AM PT
Texas, and especially the border areas of the Rio Grande Valley, have been called a human trafficking hub and the "gateway" of human trafficking into the U.S. Certainly, the Texas-Mexico border is a popular entry point for traffickers smuggling in people from all over Central and South America. But abolitionist Texans are refusing to let their state be further tainted by it's title, and have taken some serious legislative and grassroots action to close the gateway.
Local advocacy group Children At Risk has put forth a number of bills to the state legislature, including:
- HB533 created civil liability for human traffickers by providing victims with an avenue to sue traffickers.
- HB4009 established a victim assistance program, a statewide human trafficking task force and mandated training for law enforcement agencies to help identify victims.
- SB 707 requires sexually-oriented businesses to maintain proper identification records for employees or independent contractors.
- HB960 gives municipalities and counties the right to access the National Crime Information Center, to obtain criminal information on people applying for licenses to operate sexually oriented businesses.
- HB 3094 created civil liability for operating an illegitimate "massage parlor" in a county with a population of 3.3 million or more. The offense is a Class A misdemeanor and carries a fine of $1,000 per violation.
Despite these new tools for law enforcement and social service organizations, the abolitionists of Texas have their work cut out for them. An estimated 17,000 people are brought across the border each year, many of them duped with false promises of jobs that turn into slavery once they reach America. This is one of those cases where the issue of human trafficking does get tied up in the immigration debate and included in the hotly contested policies around border protection and immigration. Trafficking is one peice of a larger issue, but one which deeply affects both the people crossing the border and those who live in Texas and the rest of the U.S.
Immigration aside, however, bravo to Texas for being proactive. It's never easy to admit when you have a problem, especially one as serious as being the gateway to human trafficking into the U.S. But acknowledging the situation has helped Texas take important steps to rectify it.
Hear that traffickers? Don't mess with Texas.
Remembering Why Laura Ling and Euna Lee Were At the N. Korean Border
Published August 06, 2009 @ 07:29AM PT
The scenes of tearful reunion between journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee and their families yesterday, silhouetted against the stoic form of Bill Clinton, were moving to say the least. After months of captivity and living in fear of a sentence of 12 years in a forced labor camp, we all breathed a sigh of relief when the journalists came home. But let's not forget why Ling and Lee were captured in March- they were reporting on human trafficking across the Chinese-North Korean border.
The cross-border trafficking between China and North Korean primarily affects women and girls. They are sold as brides and forced into serviles marriages. Some North Korean women are promised greater job opportunities and education in China, along with freedoms not granted in North Korea. Too often, those jobs are forced prostitution or domestic servitude. Women in this region of the world are incredibly vulnerable to trafficking, due to the dire economic situations many of them face and the heavy corruption and criminal activity in the region.
Such cross-border trafficking between two countries is not unusual, but the situation between China and North Korea is even more complicated by the fact that both countries deny there is a serious problem with human trafficking over the border. Corruption among border officials in the region is high. Even the New York Times' Nicholas Kristof has speculated that Ling and Lee were sold by their guide to a North Korean border official, and that their guide tricked them into crossing the border. Fighting cross-border trafficking is hard enough when both countries admit the problem and take steps to address it. But in this case, denial is a river that runs across East Asia.
So as we celebrate Lee and Ling's safe returns, let us not forget why they suffered months of fear and imprisonment- to discover and report the truth about human trafficking. Let us also not forget that while they are thankfully safe at home with their families, thousands of women and girls in China and North Korea have been torn away from theirs. These women are imprisoned in brothels, homes, marriages, and workplaces. They too are scared and uncertain, Like Ling and Lee were, and wondering when they will see their families and friends again.
Who will help these women, the ones who are not yet home safe? Will it once again be Bill Clinton?
Or will it be you?
Italian Trafficking Ring Busted, 17 Arrested
Published July 30, 2009 @ 08:02AM PT
Italian law enforcement agents are patting themselves on the back today after busting a huge country-wide and international human trafficking ring. Police have arrested 17 men on charges of human trafficking and aiding illegal immigration.
This particular trafficking ring brought men from Asia, primarily Bangladesh and Pakistan, into Italy to work in agriculture. The men had to pay 10,000 Euros to their captors in order to be smuggled into the country and placed in a agricultural job. Afterwards, they found they had a debt which could not be paid off.
This story is a great example of how sometimes international trafficking rings are highly specialized, moving people from one country into one country to work in one industry. A specialized criminal enterprise such as this one can be easier to operate, because you can perfect your techniques and pay off a minimal number of corrupt officials in order to succeed. It's also important to keep in mind that several human trafficking operations can be taking place in the same country at the same time. If they move in different industries, they may not know about each other. Apparently, this ring was operating for years. Here are some of the other, unrelated operations which existed simultaneously:
- Women and girls from Albania were brought in to Italy via boat and trafficked into commercial sex.
- Nigerian women were brought in via Spain and trafficked into Italian brothels and private homes as domestic servants.
- Chinese men and women were trafficked in Italy in forded labor.
- Roma children were trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced begging.
The kicker is, Italy actually has it's act together as a country and is identifying and prosecuting trafficking. And if all these unrelated trafficking rings can operate in a wealthy, educated, politically motivated country like Italy, just think what they can do in poor countries like Bangladesh and Bolivia. Or developing countries like Honduras and Namibia. Or dictatorial countries like Burma and North Korea. This list of co-occuring trafficking rings would be much longer.
National political will, national resources, and training and education for law enforcement remain some of the best tools we have for combating trafficking. Congratulations to Italy for their recent success.
Image from animalphotos.info
Where's the List of Slave-Made Goods the Department of Labor Promised?
Published July 27, 2009 @ 12:31PM PT
In December 2008, I had the honor of attending the signing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act reauthorization - named after British abolitionist William Wilberforce - in the Oval Office. When the original 2000 Act was revised by Congress in 2005 our legislators mandated that the Department of Labor create a list of products made by forms of human trafficking: forced labor and onerous child labor.
The list would identify problem products (such as seafood, steel, textiles, etc.) and the countries where they were produced. Some such products would not be for export; other products listed would be exported, and of those a good number exported to the United States.
Such a list of slave labor products would provide consumers and shareholders leverage to fight slavery. If informed of which products coming into the United States might be tainted by slave labor, consumers could use their buying power and stockholders in companies importing such goods could use their voice to fight the problem. Both remain powerful forces even with a worldwide recession and the shrinking of citizens' investment nest-eggs.
Still, four years later - four! - there's no list.
Why? The Department of Labor, under the leadership of Secretary Elaine Chao until last January, said the requirement was an unfunded mandate - as they didn't have enough people to put on the task absent any extra funding from Congress.
Congress unwisely put no deadline on the mandate in the 2005 legislation, then gave the Department a luxurious one year to produce it with the enactment of the latest December 2008 revision of the landmark 2000 anti-slavery act.
But the list exists. While I was still the anti-trafficking ambassador, a public hearing had been held for information and a draft list was fashioned.
Unenthusiastic about anything unhelpful to business, Chao made sure that list didn't get finished on her watch.
I saw the draft list before I left government in January. I know the list has been examined by US Embassies and US diplomats loathe to complicate our relations with other governments by suggesting slave labor exists in certain sectors of their economies.
Some businesses won't like that the list identifies products and source countries, but not businesses names. So if Companies X, Y, and Z use slave labor in a producing Product P in Country C, they'd besmirch the reputation of all other companies producing Product P in Country C.
Yet that's great. It puts pressure on all companies in a sector to make sure they don't have slave labor in their supply chain.
There is every reason to think that the new Administration will set things right. But every citizen who wants to see slavery stamped out should want the earliest release of this list - mandated no less by a pro-business Republican-controlled Congress in 2005.
Please email the new Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis. Tell her it's high time to reverse the foot-dragging of the past. Ask her and the public servants of her Department to give the American people this list - to empower them to insist on a marketplace clean of goods made on the backs of slaves.
Then instead of fearing that globalization leads inexorably to people being turned into mere commodities, dehumanized, the obverse will occur. Market forces can be applied to force the globalized economy to transparently find slavery and root it out.
What's the next step after the list? Sticks and carrots. If slavery is found in the supply chain, the producer needs to be in danger of losing profit, going out of business and, if complicit, of going to jail. Steel and biofuels from Brazil, rubber and shrimp from Thailand, cotton from Uzbekistan - these all deserve scrutiny, among dozens of sectors and source countries.
Yet, much can be done by rewarding sectors free of slavery - even those more complex than manufactured goods. We must find a way to certify that cocoa from West Africa, migrant labor recruiters in South Asia, and hotels in havens for sex tourists from Costa Rica to Kenya to Cambodia are all free of slavery.
Hopefully those certified would receive a leg up from decent consumers rewarding them. This too would drive their competitors to make sure their sectors are not just clean because they will otherwise be held accountable, but because they'll make more money if they do the right thing.
However, a good first step is the list. Let Secretary Solis know you want it public and pronto.
Who's Watching the Watchmen?
Published July 23, 2009 @ 12:32PM PT
In the past few days, immigration officials in both Malaysia and the UK have been caught assisting human traffickers in moving victims into their countries. Immigration officials are poised to be life-savers when it comes to spotting trafficked persons, but they can just as easily switch sides to help the traffickers and their own pocket book.
In Malaysia, the suspects would allegedly directly hand deported immigrants to human traffickers at the Thai-Malaysian border, instead of depositing them in Thailand. Each immigration officials would receive about $100 per human they gave to the traffickers. The deportees would soon find themselves slaves, most often in Thailand's fishing industry.
In the UK, border officials took bribes from and traded favors with trafficking rings over a number or years. In some cases, money exchanged hands directly. In others, the officials and the traffickers formed "mutually beneficial relationships," which allowed them to earn over $1 million a year. A recent report from the UK states that many traffickers find it "relatively easy" to move their victims through the UK.
Corrupt immigration officials are one of the greatest tools at a trafficker's disposal if he wants to move his victims internationally. Who knows who many innocent people were handed over to human traffickers because a group of Malaysians and a group of Brits decided to make a few extra bucks? We trust these officials to put the safety of the citizens of their country and all other countries first. They are our watchmen, and they break that trust when they use it to traffick human beings.
It begs the question recently asked by Hollywood, and which should be asked by all of us about our public officials, in light of these events: Who's watching the watchmen?
Image from iwatchstuff.com
Life Inside a North Korean Labor Camp
Published July 22, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
If you thought the era of the forced labor camp was over, think again. Today, over 200,000 North Koreans face conditions and abuses similar to those of the Soviet gulag, the Nazi concentration camp, and the U.S. Japanese internment camp.
Official accounts from inside North Korean labor camps are few, and most have not been officially documented. But reports from released and escaped inmates indicate that prisoners are forced to work 12-15 hour days, and are fed a measly portion of sugared corn as their only meal. Women are raped with impunity and denied access to sanitary napkins. Relatives of prisoners who commit suicide are punished. The labor camp is one of the few forms of modern-day slavery sanctioned by a government.
For most people in the camps, there is no hope for an end to their slavery. A few lucky individuals may undergo years of remedial socialist indoctrination, to be released under parole-like conditions. The rest, however, will die working in hard manual labor. And when the guards are taught to look at the inmates as pigs and prisoners are forced to view assassinations as lessons, death is sometimes welcomed.
International human rights and anti-trafficking activists have been trying to fight the North Korean slave camps for years, often with little help from foreign governments. The fact that most of the world has ignored this form of slavery officially sanctioned by a government is inexcusable. And yet, the U.S. and Europe remain so focused on issues of nuclear proliferation they forget entirely the suffering and slavery of the North Korean people.
If life is bleak for slaves in countries where there is political will and resources to combat slavery, how hopeless must it be for those forced to endure government-sponsored slavery as a prison sentence? And more importantly, what can we possibly do to end such abuses?
Image from ri.net
The Pros and Cons of Prostitution Court
Published July 20, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Baltimore is certainly not the first city to develop such a specialized court. Dallas began a diversion program last year which has helped women who wanted to leave prostitution but had no options get out. And other cities around the country are starting to re-think the way their criminal justice systems handle prostitution cases.
But do specialized prostitution courts "work"? Many of these programs are only a couple years old, so few cities have hard statistics on whether or not such a court program has significantly reduced the amount of prostitution in the area. A huge pro of having a specialized court system for women with prostitution charges is that it becomes much easier to train the people working in that court to identify children in prostitution and women in prostitution against their will. It also gives women who perhaps entered prostitution willingly but have since wanted to choose something else a way out of the industry.
On the other hand, one con of this system is that some specialized courts and diversion programs may deny due process to the women arrested, forcing them into the treatment program instead of allowing them a full trial to deny the charges. However, this problem seems possible to avoid if the diversion program/specialty court were optional as opposed to mandatory. Another con is that depending on how such a court is handled, it could be used to further stigmatize women charged with prostitution.
As cities like Baltimore and Dallas begin to track the progress of their specialized courts, other cities will be able to use their data and experiences to improve their own court systems. Hopefully, these specialized courts will help other criminal justice systems focus more on providing services to women in prostitution and identifying which women are trafficking victims. Do you have a specialized prostitution court in your area? Do you think it has worked?
Image from sharonherald.com
