Human Trafficking in Europe and the Middle East
To Better Know a Country: Human Trafficking in Poland
Published September 09, 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..... Poland
Basic Stats
- Ranking: Tier 1
- Status: Source, transit and destination country for trafficking victims
- Political Stability: Solid, despite their history of being conquered by a smorgasbord of European megalomaniacs
- Cash Flow: Free markets + Euro= a whole lot of pierogies and Zyweic
- Do I Think They Care?: They're pretty serious about stopping people being rounded up, forced to work, and killed- for good reason.
Who Are the Victims and What Are They Doing?
- Women: Commercial sex, forced begging, debt bondage, and forced labor
- Men: Forced labor
Where Are They Coming From and Where Are They Going?
- Victims are trafficked from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Mongolia, and Vietnam to Poland.
- Victims from Poland are trafficked to Italy, Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Sweden, and The Netherlands.
- Victims are trafficked through Poland from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia for other destinations in Europe.
What's Gotta Happen?
- Ensure traffickers actually get prison time.
- Train police and judges.
- Create housing for male trafficking victims.
- Conduct awareness campaigns on reducing demand for commercial sex.
What Can I Do?
- You can support La Strada Poland, an organization which works to prevent human trafficking in Poland and assist victims of human trafficking in Poland and other parts of Europe.
In summary, Poland is kicking some serious human trafficker butt at a level expected of wealthier countries with longer histories of self-determined democratic rule. Despite the fact that Poland has had great political turmoil in the 20th century, membership in the European Union and a strong political will has helped Poland stay one step ahead of those who would exploit its people. I'll certainly raise a glass of vodka in toast to that!
From Budapest to Toronto: Timea Eva's True Story of Slavery
Published September 06, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
This story was collected from KMBC. Timea Eva's experiences as a trafficking victim are common. They're so common that situations like her's -- a young, Eastern European woman tricked into the commercial sex industry -- have become the norm for mainstream coverage and examples of human trafficking. But this situation was real for Timea Eva and thousands of other women from Eastern Europe from the 1990s to today.
The summer Timea Eva Nagy was 20, she decided to take a summer job in Canada. It was far away from her home in Budapest, Hungary, but she would earn money and have an interesting international experience. Shortly arriving in Toronto, however, she was kidnapped and forced to strip and sell her body for sex.
During her captivity, Nagy desperately wanted to leave, but her traffickers threatened to harm her family back in Hungary if she tried to escape. They starved her to keep her weak and thin. She tried to find help. She eventually even tried suicide. But it seemed nothing would release her from this nightmare. But despite it all, Nagy suppressed the urge to panic and break down. She stayed calm and went into "survival mode", determined to finally find a way to break free.
Finally she found a way out. Nagy managed to use a Hungarian-English dictionary to explain to a DJ and a security guard that she was being abused, and that she wanted to leave. They helped her escape her captors and find safety.
Nagy's story has as happy an ending as such a story can have. She now tours the U.S. talking about her experience and educating people on the reality of human trafficking. She has even written a book called "Walk with Me: A Memoir of a Sex Slave Worker."
Photo credit: Mysi anne
Feudalism Still Practised in Pakistan
Published September 01, 2009 @ 02:50PM PT
What do 13th century France and modern-day Pakistan have in common? Feudalism -- a system where a tiny minority of people own the vast majority of the land. In medieval Europe, feudalism was one of the major reasons innovation came to a screeching halt for several hundred years and leeches were considered medicinal. In modern-day Pakistan, feudalism is keeping men, women, and children in bonded labor across the country.
Here's how bonded labor in Pakistan works. Let's say I'm part of the 10% of men (and they are almost all men) lucky enough to own 90% of land in Pakistan. I need someone to harvest the crops on my land, so I go into a village and find a poor family with children. I offer to take two of their sons to my farm, and feed and house the kids. All the kids have to do is sign a contract to work off their room and board. I'm not going to pay the kids, but I'll send the family a portion of my crops. The kids sign, I take them to my farm, and I invent a massive debt their room and board is costing me that they can never pay off. So, I get free labor for life and for only the cost of a tiny potion of my harvest. The system is not very different from that of medieval Europe.
Previous efforts to address debt bondage and slavery in Pakistan have revolved around legal intervention, humanitarian efforts, and public education. These are all great things, but the fact is that Pakistan is operating as a feudal society. And in a feudal society, there are serfs, or as we now call them, bonded laborers. But unlike 13th century France where almost all serfs were exploited in agriculture, Pakistanis are exploited in a number of industries, including brick kilns, carpet weaving, mining, glass-bangle manufacturing units, tanneries, domestic work and beggary. It's a diversified portfolio of a feudal society, but its still the dark ages.
In order to address bonded labor in Pakistan, we need a new approach which takes into account the archaic systems Pakistan has long relied on. Otherwise, Pakistan might never see its own Renaissance.
Photo credit: Little Farmer by Sparkle_lavalamp
To Better Know A Country: Human Trafficking in Afghanistan
Published August 26, 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..... Afghanistan
Basic Stats
- Ranking: Tier 2
- Status: Source, transit, and destination country for trafficking victims
- Political Stability: Unlike the country itself, not so hot
- Cash Flow: Like the country itself, pretty dry
- Do I Think They Care?: Trafficking is pretty low on their priorities list
Who Are the Victims and What Are They Doing?
- Girls: Commercial sex, forced begging, forced marriage, debt bondage, carpet-making factories, and domestic servitude.
- Boys: Extremist/terrorist paramilitary groups, commercial sex, forced begging, debt bondage, carpet-making factories, and domestic servitude
- Women: Commercial sex and forced marriage
- Men: Forced labor and debt bondage
What Are They Coming From and Where Are They Going?
- Victims are trafficked from Afghanistan to Iran and Pakistan
- Victims are trafficked from Iran, Tajikistan, and China to Afghanistan
- Victims are trafficked through Afghanistan from Iran and Tajikistan
- Afghan and foreign victims are trafficked internally
What's Gotta Happen?
- More prosecution of traffickers
- Work with NGOs to protect child victims
- More public awareness campaigns
What Can I Do?
- You can support the Central Asia Institute, which promotes community-based education, especially for girls, in remote areas of Afghanistan.
In summary, Afghanistan's got a lot of really, really rough stuff going on right now, between the political instability, the foreign military presence, and the economy. I'm not surprised that combating trafficking is a little low on their list. However, I hope they see the connection between labor exploitation and economic struggles, and between international trafficking and border security and step up their game. They might fin solving trafficking solves their other problems as well.
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
Human Trafficking and Islam
Published August 11, 2009 @ 12:03PM PT
Recently, the U.S. State Department has criticized Muslin countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Malaysia for their lack of efforts fighting human trafficking. Coupled with the cultural divide between Westerners and Muslims, this criticism has posed some questions about Islam and human trafficking. Is human trafficking a bigger problem in Muslim nations? Does Islam support or condone slavery in any form? What should a good Muslim do about human trafficking?
First, human trafficking is a problem everywhere. Sure, some Muslim countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia are not doing enough to combat human trafficking. But neither are countries like Burma (mostly Buddhist), Swaziland (mostly Christian), India (mostly Hindu), and North Korea (officially atheist). Human trafficking has been found in countries with democratic governments, autocratic governments, secular governments, and religious governments of all faiths. So, no, being a Muslim country does not necessarily mean an increase in human trafficking activity. Additionally, some Muslim countries like Jordan, Morocco, and Oman are doing pretty well in combating trafficking, indicating Muslim countries can effectively reduce human trafficking when they choose to.
But does Islam support slavery? I'm neither a Muslim nor a religious scholar, but from my research I've found the answer to be "no". Religious texts throughout the ages, including the Bible, Torah, and Quran have been used and interpreted to support slavery, but modern-day Quranic scholars agree with Christian and Jewish scholars that, no, slavery is not permissible. Habib Siddiqui of The American Muslim points out the one of the Quran's specific condemnation of slavery,
“It is not (possible) for any human being unto whom Allah had given him the Scripture and wisdom and ‘Nabuwah’ (Prophethood) that he should afterwards have said unto mankind: Be slaves of me instead of Allah …” [3:79]
Muslim religious tradition is also rich with promises of rewards for people who value the freedom of others on earth, including specific promises of heaven for those who “Give food to the hungry, pay a visit to the sick and release (set free) the one in captivity (by paying his ransom).” However, just like Christian slave-traders of the 18th and 19th centuries read support for slavery into the Bible, so also have some Muslims claimed that Islam does not prohibit slavery.
Islam is full of religious and scriptural teachings instructing its followers to fight for justice for the oppressed and enslaved, calling Muslims to fight human trafficking as much as followers of any religion. In that, all people of faith have the same mandate when it comes to modern-day slavery: end it. When we see through our differences of faith to our common goals, it is easier for us to unite against the real enemies- those who abuse, rape, exploit, enslave, and degrade our brothers and sisters, whatever their faiths may be.
Image from mecca.com
The Price of Sex
Published August 08, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Photo journalist Mimi Chakarova has created a great collection of videos and photos of Eastern European women telling their stories of being enslaved in prostitution. Four of the videos tell the stories of individual survivors, and two others are focused on women at risk and how sex trafficking works. You can view all these at: www.priceofsex.org.
This project tells the story of one form of trafficking from one region, affecting one group of victims. The issue of trafficking women into prostitution is, of course, a problem in areas other than Eastern Europe and former Soviet-bloc countries. However, as many of the videos explain, women in this area have been some of the most vulnerable to exploitation in prostitution. Many face the impossible choice of remaining jobless and poor in their home country or risking trafficking by taking a job overseas. It's a risk they know, and they take it because staying and starving is not a viable choice.
It's also important to note that many women who are trafficked knowingly and willingly enter prostitution. While the most publicized stories are about women who thought they would be waitresses or nannies, some take a job in the Netherlands or Germany in what they expect will be legal, safe prostitution on their own terms. Even after making that choice, women can be trafficked one their freedom is removed or their labor stolen and exploited. A woman who took a job as a prostitute and one who took a job as a waitress are equally trafficked once they loose their ability to leave or control their situation. The women from Eastern Europe thought they were taking a number of different kids of jobs, jobs that all turned into slavery.
The price of sex is higher than you think, and Chakarova eloquently tells the stories of just how high it can be.
Image from humantraffickingproject.blogspot.com
