Human Trafficking in Asia and the Pacific
International Traffickers Association Promo
Published October 17, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Have you ever wondered what would happen if human traffickers around the world came together to lobby for common interests as part of a trade association? If not, then you don't work for MTV EXIT. They are nothing if not creative.
This video reminds me so much of the Dharma Initiative training videos from Lost, that I can't help but wonder if MTV made the connection on purpose. It feels like something mysterious and groundbreaking -- the key to figuring out how modern-day slavery as an institution works. The information itself may not be groundbreaking, but with MTV the packaging so often is. And when the goal is to get people to pay attention to something like human trafficking which they would rather ignore, the packaging makes all the difference.
Orange County Seeks Happy Ending to Massage Parlor Ads
Published October 14, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
The Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force can't get a decent massage. Maybe that's because the pages of their newspaper, and newspapers nationwide including the Washington Post, are full of ads for "massage parlors" featuring partially clothed, unlicensed female "masseuses." It's one of the most transparent fronts for prostitution and human trafficking still legally advertised, and people are increasingly calling for an end to the ads.
One of the beautiful parts of the American justice system is that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The same holds true for business activities -- they are presumed legal until they are proven illegal. It's legal to post an add promising massages by women in fishnets who just turned 18. It's legal to cover these ads with non-nude sexual imagery aimed at an exclusively male audience. But it's not legal (in most of the U.S.) to run a brothel and it's not legal to sell trafficked women anywhere. So how do you know which massage business are legal and which are illegal? Enter, law enforcement. It's their job to determine if a seemingly-legal business is actually a front for something illegal. A favorite tool of law enforcement to accomplish this is conducting raids in massage parlors they find suspicious, with results varying from ecstatic thanks from newly freed trafficking victims to deportations of undocumented women voluntarily in prostitution to significant abuse by the police. It is certainly a flawed system, but one which does achieve its aims much of the time.
There is one element which I often find missing when we talk about the connection between massage parlors, prostitution, and human trafficking: common sense. Let's face it -- many of these ads are painfully obvious as covers for illegal commercial sex. I think we often get so caught up in legal definitions, we forget to use our common sense as a test for what's legitimate and what's not. Legitimate massage ads tend to focus on their licensed therapists, spa services, relaxing atmosphere, hygiene standards, and quality of service. Illegitimate massage ads tend to focus on the age or race of their masseuses, the "eroticness" of the massage, and men as a target audience. Sure, some of these ads are more nuanced and deceptive, but many of them look and feel obviously illegitimate. If the common sense test comes out with a score of sketchy, then the trickier question becomes whether a massage parlor is an illegal brothel full of trafficking victims and/or children or women who have voluntarily entered prostitution.
It's important to approach this intersection between massage parlors, prostitution, and human trafficking with a solid knowledge of legal codes and a strategic plan to work with law enforcement. But it's also important for activists to use their common sense about what is being advertised in their newspapers and speak out about it. Police can raid only so many massage parlor brothels. But when newspapers have gotten enough complaints from readers about running these ads in the past, they've stopped. And no advertising means less business for pimps and less incentive for traffickers.
Photo credit: thomaswanhoff
Child Slavery at the Circus
Published October 11, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Lions and tigers and bears and slaves, oh my! In the West, we most often associate the circus with acrobats, clowns, cotton candy, and animals (which are often abused as well). But for many Nepalese girls, the circus in India represents a life of slavery, rape, and exploitation.
It's difficult to estimate the number of children who have been trafficked into Indian circuses. One estimate is about 500 at any given time, with new ones being recruited as others age out or escape. They are mostly girls from small villages in Nepal. Some are kidnapped, some a tricked, and some are signed into a contract to work by their parents. But no matter how they enter, these girls rehearse and perform for hours a day, for as little as $3 per month. At night, many are abused and raped by men in the circus or sold in prostitution for extra money. Those who go to see the circus may never know that bright smiles and stage makeup hide nefarious exploitation and slavery backstage.
The Nepalese government has only recently begun to treat the recruitment and captivity of children in circuses as a crime. But now, they are even reaching out to the Indian government to work in partnership to reduced the number of Nepalese girls trafficked into circuses. This is a vast improvement of policy for both governments, and has the potential to prevent more girls from being trafficked into circuses.
I stumbled upon a video that's a great example of human trafficking in circuses. In 2007, a British rescue organization teamed up with a group of Nepalese parents to try and find and rescue the children they had lost to circuses. This is short documentary video of their efforts, which creates an vivid picture of what human trafficking in Indian circuses is like, complete with police corruption, difficulty in finding the victims and traffickers, and a happy ending for at least some of the enslaved girls. It's the reality faced by so many children hoping to escape slavery in an industry created for the joy and amusement of children.
DOL Commits $59 Million to End Child Labor
Published October 01, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
It's nice to see a government agency putting their money where their reports and public statements are (for once). Following up their in-depth report identifying consumer goods made by child and/or forced labor in a number of countries, the Department of Labor has now committed $59 million dollars in grants to help end those practices and remove victims to safety. You can't see it, but I'm having a personal little party right now.
Here's how the breakdown of dollars went regionally:
- Africa: $20.4 million
- Latin America: $15.8 million
- Asia: $15.3 million
The rest of the funds will go to research and the development of a best practices model to prevent child labor. While I'm usually a fan of anything that channels more money to my often-ignored and under-funded friend Africa, I have to question their distribution between Africa and Asia. While Africa has some incredibly serious child trafficking and forced labor issues to address, the industries in Asia which enslave children and workers are much more diverse. Plus, the sheer logistics of getting to rural areas in Asian countries is much harder based on their size, and rural areas is where most of the exploitation is taking place. Arguably, African countries will be less able to put forth their own funds than relatively wealthier Asian countries like India and China, but I would still reconsider the expense of implementing a diversity of programs in the vast rural regions of Asia. It's going to be a huge undertaking.
But despite my difference of opinion on the funding allocations, I'm still celebrating. The reason for my party is that unlike previous administrations, <cough> Bush <cough>, it's good to see that the DOL under Secretary Solis isn't going to talk a big game and then sit on the cash and refuse to take any concrete action. The DOL is also modeling a behavior that we as consumers should pay attention to: if you say you care about this issue, be willing to pay for it. That means we have to be willing to spend a little more for t-shirts, coffee, rugs, and everything else that is made without child or forced labor. But if we're all willing to pay a little more, than no one has to pay a lot, especially enslaved children.
In Recession, 35% of Asians in Prostitution Are Children
Published October 01, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
I was heartened to hear today that the IMF says the global recession is over, but they might have a hard time convincing the thousands of children who are now being forced into commercial sex as a result of the recession in Southeast Asia that bluer skies are ahead. UNICEF estimates that now up to 35% of people in prostitution in the Mekong sub-region are between 12 and 17 years old. Sorry, IMF, but the recession's not over for them just yet.
35% is a huge number- just over one third. Statistically speaking, if you went to this part of Asia and had sex with three "women" in prostitution, one of them would be a child. Children are not a small portion of the commercial sex industry, but a major sustainer of it. To those individuals who argue that trafficking victims make up a tiny portion of people in prostitution and that the vast majority are in the industry willingly, I say "not in the Mekong sub-region". But why is it this part of the world that sees so much child exploitation?
A number of factors are contributing to an increase of children sold for sex in the region. Unemployment in Thailand is spiking, and thousands of factories and projects are being shut down. As poverty is increasing, living conditions are deteriorating and children are more likely to leave school and search for work. Even before the global recession, some countries like Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand relied on child sex tourism as a large contributor to GDP -- anywhere from 2% to 14%, according to the ILO. And with other forms of productions down, that percentage may be rising. Then, of course, there's always the reputation -- earned or not -- of lax laws and easily-bribed officials.
But these problems are not unique to Southeast Asia. Unemployment and factory closings are high everywhere, even here in the U.S. More children are becoming homeless and families are unable to pay school fees. Does this mean that perhaps Southeast Asia isn't the only region seeing an increase in child trafficking and child sex tourism? Sure it's the most famous region for child sex tourism, but other parts of the world -- places like Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico especially-- are also becoming common destinations for child sex tourists. I wonder if those areas aren't seeing this same increase.
On one hand it's great to have optimistic economic indicators that the recession is now over. But it's another thing to remember that the human reality of the recession will last for years, regardless of what the economists think looks promising. The 12-year-old girl who was forced into a brothel in Cambodia yesterday won't be released today because the IMF has announced the end of the recession. She'll be there for months, maybe years to come. Maybe she'll find a way out and maybe not. In either case, her recession is far from over.
Photo credit: youngsixta
To Better Know A Country: Human Trafficking in Hong Kong
Published September 23, 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..... Hong Kong
Basic Stats
- Ranking: Tier 2
- Status: Transit and destination country for trafficking victims
- Political Stability: The more kisses strategically placed on China's butt, the better Hong Kong is.
- Cash Flow: It's the fifth mo$t expen$ive city in the world for expat$ and a major financial center.
- Do I Think They Care?: As long as ending trafficking doesn't affect their bottom line, which is kinda does.
Who Are the Victims and What Are They Doing?
- Women: Forced labor, commercial sex, debt bondage
- Men: Forced labor, debt bondage
Where Are They Coming From and Where Are They Going?
- Victims are trafficked from China, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia to Hong Kong.
- Victims are trafficked through Hong Kong from China, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia to other parts of Asia.
What's Gotta Happen?
- Investigate and prosecute traffickers, especially for labor violations.
- Proactively identify trafficking victims, especially in commercial sex industries.
- Create a public awareness campaign aimed at reducing demand for commercial sex.
What Can I Do
- You can support Caritas Hong Kong, an organization which provides social and medical services to children and families in need.
In summary, Hong Kong is all about the Benjamins, baby. And if a little child trafficking or forced labor or debt bondage slips into the mix, the government seems to be willing to look the other way. One way to get Hong Kong to care about trafficking would be to show that that actually, having slaves in their country is bad for business, because no one wants to do business with a slave-holder. But before we can do that, we must first demonstrate that we care about slave-free business by buying slave-free products.
An American Pedophile in Cambodia
Published September 18, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Warning: The the videos and commentary in this post are graphic and disturbing, even for a human trafficking blog.
Despite increased international pressure and national efforts to end child sex tourism in Cambodia, it remains a top destination for pedophiles looking to have sex with children. The child sex tourism industry in Cambodia is also notoriously young, including children who are five, six, and seven years old as well as pre-teens and young teens. ABC Nightline conducted a raid on a suspected American pedophile, and what they found was disturbing.
The story of Harvey Johnson -- the man who is the subject of the Nightline sting -- is not unique. It's the story of a retired man who moves to Cambodia and sets up a gig as a volunteer English teacher, giving him access to hundreds of children. Some of the thousands of the sex tourists who travel to Cambodia each year use simialr guises to have access to children, and some just shop for them on the streets. Case in point: while the ABC film crew were researching the ease of buying kids for sex in Cambodia, the cops showed up. At first the reporters were worried, but it turns out the cops just wanted a chance to sell the kids that they had procured, and they started loading girls into the back of the reporters' van. With some police conducting sting operations and others selling children to tourists, it's hard to know who to trust in Cambodia.
It is disturbingly easy to have sex with a very, very young child as a Western tourist in Cambodia. They are being sold by brothel owners, slave brokers, and even their own mothers. The desperation of so many families is so great, that sex with children in Cambodia has become a full commodity, a resource for a family who otherwise would have no resources. And most disturbingly of all, there seems to be no shortage of buyers in this marketplace, no lack of American and European men who want to buy the youngest child possible. If Harvey Johnson is found guilty, there will be a long line of men waiting to rent his house and take his place as a teacher/abuser.
Johnson's case is still pending, but the police and reporters found his apartment to be filled with an disturbing and incriminating assortment of items that would lead most people to believe he was making is own child pornography and abusing the young girls who he taught. You can watch the videos of Nightline's sting operation here: Part1, Part 2, and Part 3 (ABC won't allow them to be embedded for proprietary reasons).
Photo credit: vivere.christus
