Human Trafficking in Asia and the Pacific
4500 Filipino Child Laborers Harvest Sugar for U.S. Markets
Published September 07, 2009 @ 08:06AM PT
This week, over 6800 child laborers were rescued in the Philippines. They were exploited in a number of industries, from domestic service to commercial sex to selling drugs. But the vast majority -- over 4500 -- were being exploited on sugarcane plantations. Filipino authorities say these kids are only a tiny fraction of the over 4 million estimated to be enslaved or exploited in labor in the Philippines, in part to sell cheaper sugar to the U.S.
Sugarcane plantations can be extremely dangerous for children, and many work brutally long days with no breaks and little to eat. They cannot go to school, thus ensuring the plantation owners whole generations of workers who have no options other than the plantation and feel increasingly trapped in their situation. They are often take away from their families and forced to live on the plantations. Some of the children are slaves -- trapped by debt or the threat of violence and unable to leave. Others have the freedom to leave, but nowhere to go and no other viable ways to feed themselves and their families. Either way, it's exploitation of children that allows plantations to churn out cheaper sugar.
So where is all this sugar harvested by these Filipino kids going? Well, at least 500,000 metric tons of it are going to the U.S. every year. In fact, earlier this year the U.S. agree to import more sugar from the Philippines than ever before. This was good news for Filipino Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) head Rafael Coscolluela, who said in December 2008 that the Philippines is "in for hard times in the next two years and it’s time for belt tightening for the sugar sector.” He also said the Philippine sugar industry must “become more efficient to lower production cost.” I have to wonder if there is a connection between the "belt-tightening" measures the Filipino sugar industry put into place last year in order to sell more to the U.S. and the 4500 kids who were rescued from plantations several months later. How many plantation owners and operators cut costs by cutting the pay or food of children? How many cut costs by firing paid adult workers and enslaving children to take their places?
Filipino sugar is grown by exploited child laborers, and sold to U.S. markets. This isn't abuse taking place overseas and far away, it's abuse being packaged into a bag of sugar and sold in U.S. supermarkets. Maybe it's being sold in your supermarket. This is exactly why it's important to know where your products come from and ask pointed questions of companies and governments. You have a right to demand sugar produced without exploitation of children. And when you exercise that right? Well now that's sweet.
Photo credit: Raw sugar bowl by Ayelie
Stop Crucifixes and Bible Covers Made By Slaves
Published August 21, 2009 @ 08:22AM PT
In 2007, a case of crucifixes purchased by St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York was traced back to a factory in China where girls as young as 15 were forced to work up to 19-hour days, seven days a week. Today, Christian items from bible covers to t-shirts are being made in factorys which abuse and traffic workers. And some Christians are standing up and refusing to stand for slavery.
The Just Holy Hardware Campaignhas launched this week as part of a movement to end slavery, especially slavery of children, in the production of religious items. The initiative, based in Australia, aims to provide religious organizations with paraphernalia made under fair labor conditions, with a "no-slavery" guarantee. Sr. Pauline Coll, a representative on the national executive of Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH), has been particularly outspoken on the issue, saying the massive U.S.-based Association for Christian Retail,
"was found to lack basic codes of conduct and a factory-monitoring program. There was little to reassure American Christians that the religious products they buy to celebrate their faith were not made under inhumane conditions."
In Australia, a team of NGOs have drafted a Christian Good Standard, which they hope organizations will adhere to when purchasing Christian items. Organizations in Australia are currently adopting it.
The U.S. is a huge market for Christian goods, and if the Association for Christian Retail (a very large organization) agreed to adopt a set of standards similar to the one adopted in Australia, it would make a huge impact on the lives of the slaves who are right now suffering in silence while making religious artifacts. Please, ask the Association for Christian Retail to adopt a set of anti-slavery standards for the production of Christian goods.
Christian or not, slavery is wrong. And slave-made items are tainted by this injustice, whether they are shoes or crucifixes. We need all people, regardless of faith to come together and take action so that we can end slavery in the production of religious artifacts.
1000 Chinese Cooks Enslaved in Germany
Published August 19, 2009 @ 12:38PM PT
Modern-day slaves can be found anywhere, doing anything. This week in Germany, over 1000 of them were found cooking in Chinese takeout restaurants. They were victims of a human trafficking ring which smuggled Chinese nationals into Germany as "specialty cooks" and then made millions off their labor.
Here's how it worked: Chinese workers interested in coming to Germany to earn money would pay 10,000 Euros for a visa and what they thought was a legitimate contract for work. Once in Germany, however, their passports were taken and they were thrown into debt bondage, unable to leave until they repaid the massive debt. They were forced to work 80-90 hours a week cooking in Chinese restaurants all over the country and paid a paultry 3 Euros an hour. Even though these workers were paid, because they were held in debt bondage and not free to leave, they were slaves in the restaurant industry.
Too often the faces of human trafficking feel far away from us. We think of the young girl in the brothel in Brazil or the child enslaved in a diplomat's home in Washington DC and think- how could this ever reach to me? But Chinese takeout reaches millions of people in the U.S. and Europe. Who doesn't have a favorite dish from the place down the street? How many of us know the delivery boy or girl by sight, if not by name? This is one form of trafficking many of us are connected to.
This story comes from Germany, but it could just as easily have happened in the U.S. One of the reasons human trafficking in restaurants is so hard to find, is that we have only a tiny fraction of the labor inspectors we would need to visit every restaurant once, much less on a regular basis. Plus, site inspections often focus more on immigration status than labor and human rights issues. We need more inspectors who are specifically looking for labor exploitation and human trafficking as opposed to immigration status. If that ever happens, we might find what Germany found.
Bravo to Germany for ending the exploitation of over 1000 people. I hope the U.S. and other countries can learn from your experience that slaves can be anywhere, even in the kitchen.
Image from unionleader.com
Legal Prostitution in Australia a "Failure"
Published August 18, 2009 @ 10:53AM PT
Ten years ago, Australia made a risky policy move it thought would help protect women and children: it legalized prostitution. Today, only 10% of the prostitution industry operates in Australia's legal brothels. The other 90% takes place in underground, illegal sex markets thick with forced prostitution and human trafficking victims.
The University of Queensland Working Group on Human Trafficking recently released a report stating that the prostitution laws in Australia had failed. Since 1999, women in Australia have had the option of working legally in licensed brothels or on their own. The hope was that women with an entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for commercial sex would set up their own businesses, and make everything safe, legal, and regulated. That hasn't happened.
What has happened, instead, is entrepreneurial pimps have lured and trafficked Asian women to Australia and set up illegal brothels with lower prices. Trafficking is "booming" in Queensland, and there are few laws to help protect women who are lured or coerced into prostitution against their will. And as legal brothels try and compete with the trafficking boom, they cut costs, which often involves cutting freedom and benefits for women. Even in the legal, liscenced brothels of Queensland, women have reported being coerced into working under unfair conditions or against their will.
Australian advocates and policy-makers are offering a number of solutions to this problem, everything from increasing the police force looking for illegal brothels to making the legal brothel's fees lower to adding new legal protections for immigrant women in the commercial sex industry. The one thing everyone seems to agree on is that legal prostitution in Australia isn't working to protect women. But how should it be fixed?
Here's my vote: Legal prostitution in Australia isn't working to protect women because legal prostitution doesn't work to protect women. It will always be cheaper to set up an illegal brothel full of slave labor than to pay fees and salaries and health care to licensed workers. As long as there are men demanding cheap commercial sex, there will be traffickers willing to supply it. And where there is a legal market, there will be more men demanding sex, though not always at legal market prices.
Australia's experiment is one more example of when the theory of prostitution and the practice of it don't match up. In theory, Queensland should now be full of empowered women owning and working in commercial sex businesses and a vast majority (if not all) of women in commercial sex participating freely. In practice, it is a tiny, ineffective legal commercial sex industry with little entrepreneurship and a massive, booming industry of sexual slavery.
Image from abc.net.au
Inspired, Activist Creates NGO to Save Cambodian Girls
Published August 16, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Nomi Network Co-Founder Diana Mao tells the powerful story of how a heart-breaking trip to Cambodia led her to create her own non-profit organization to help girls and women in Cambodia find freedom from slavery. You can check out my guest post on their blog here.
My first encounter with sex trafficking was when I was a micro-finance research fellow in Cambodia in 2005. My task was to interview over 300 micro-finance clients, many of whom lived in remote villages and made less than $1 per day. The experience was a rude awakening. A micro-finance client and father of 7 children offered to give me his daughter to bring back to the United States, in the hope that she would have a better life. As I stared into his eyes, I understood that he did not want to give up his daughter but that his request was a result of desperate poverty. In this same village very young girls were being recruited to work in brothels.
My experience in Cambodia led me to form the non-profit organization, Nomi Network. Sex traffickers prey on poor and unemployed women. The goal of Nomi Network is to empower women economically by employing them in manufacturing jobs in the fashion industry, and to help create a market for the products they make. Once women have stable employment and a steady income, they will no longer be at risk to sex traffickers. To ensure success and sustainability, Nomi Network coordinates the efforts of the women with manufacturers, retailers, and consumers.
Consumer purchases can contribute greatly towards the eradication of sex trafficking. The total market for illicit sex trafficking is approximately $28 billion dollars. What if just a fraction of that amount was channeled into creating opportunities for girls that have been exploited? Girls, some as young as 5, who were once exploited, violated, and stripped of their dignity could be given the hope of a future. Nomi Network offers survivors of sex trafficking gainful employment by ensuring that there is a demand for their products and not their body.
You can help break the vicious cycle of sexual exploitation and invest in their lives by purchasing Nomi Network's signature product, the "Buy Her Bag, Not Her Body," tote bag. The tote bags are made from recycled rice-bag paper, and are made by women who are either survivors or at risk from sex trafficking. The women who make the bags receive competitive wages, medical care, childcare, and one meal per day. In addition, a portion of the proceeds from each sale will be allocated to creating more training and job opportunities for survivors. Put your consumption power to use and pre-order a bag today for $20 at www.nominetwork.org. Bags will also be available at various boutiques for $25. Please look for a full listing on our website.
For more information about Nomi Network:
To Better Know A Country: Human Trafficking in Burma
Published August 12, 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..... Burma
Basic Stats
- Ranking: Tier 3
- Status: Source country for trafficking victims
- Political Stability: I guess crippling oppression is a form of stability...
- Cash Flow: Lower than Snoop Dogg's fat pants
- Do I Think They Care?: Not even if the Burmese people all caught on fire
Who Are the Victims and What Are They Doing?
- Girls: Commercial sex, child sex tourism, domestic servitude, and forced labor in agriculture, fishing, or shops
- Boys: Forced begging, child sex tourism, child soldiers, and forced labor in agriculture, fishing, or shops
- Women: Commercial sex and forced marriage
- Men: Forced labor
Where Are They Coming From and Where Are They Going?
- Victims are trafficked from Burma to Thailand, China, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, and South Korea.
- Burmese victims are trafficked internally.
What's Gotta Happen?
- Prosecute military officials who recruit or use child soldiers.
- Prosecute internal trafficking and forced labor.
- Work with NGOs in a transparent way.
- Develop victim identification procedures.
- Create more public awareness campaigns on internal trafficking of women for commercial sex.
What Can I Do?
- You can support the Foundation for the People of Burma, which provides humanitarian aid to Burmese people in need.
In summary, Burma's government is currently run by an oppressive, authoritarian military regime which seems to care little for the basic human rights of the Burmese people, including freedom from slavery. There is much, much work to be done in Burma and very little money to do it with, which means I'm not shocked if trafficking falls off their radar. Perhaps when Aung San Suu Kyi, the Prime Minister Elect of Burma, is allowed to leaver her house and is rightfully returned to power, human trafficking in Burma will begin to peter off with the other oppressions.
China's "Comfort Women" Exposed in New Film
Published August 09, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
The topic of "comfort women", women forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military during World War II, recently got a lot of publicity when the U.S. House of Representative passed a resolution on the topic. But lesser known is the story of the thousands of Chinese women who were trafficked into prostitution and forced marriage in the early 1950s. A new Chinese film, 8,000 Girls Ascend the Heavenly Mountain, tells their story.
In the late 1940s and the early 1950s, the Chinese government sent around 200,000 soldiers and 40,000 young women and girls to the far Western provinces of China, which at the time were heavily Muslim areas. The communist government's goal was to marry off the girls to the army's officers (often arranged as a reward for service and seniority), and thus populate the region with the children of patriots and communists, who would soon outnumber the Muslims. The women were claimed via force, deception, and coercion and then forced to marry whichever officer chose them. Some were brainwashed and convinced they were doing a patriotic duty to create a "new China" for their children.
Xiao Yequn was 15 when she was first brought to the military camp. First, she refused to marry the significantly older man she had been assigned to.
When I found out he was nine years older than me I was unwilling to be his wife. He immediately took out his pistol and put a bullet in the chamber. I dared not resist and the next year we got married.
Simultaneously, Chairman Mao was ordering women in prostitution to be sent in forced service to Chinese troops to undergo "thought reform." The accounts of rape, suicide, forced marriage, forced prostitution, and other abuses from the survivors of this period of Chinese history are not terribly unlike those of the Japanese and Korean comfort women. Yet, the plight of these trafficked Chinese women is much less understood or publicized. Perhaps the lack of information on this issue is due to the Chinese government's reluctance to examine historical (and current) human rights violations.
While it is unclear exactly how 8,000 Girls Ascend the Heavenly Mountain will address the issue, it will hopefully bring a better understanding of the experience of women trafficked into forced marriage in China to Chinese and international audiences. And more importantly, it will hopefully bring a greater sense of peace and justice to the women who survived the ordeal.
Image from theonlinephotographer.typepad.com
