Human Trafficking in the US
Cigarettes: Bad for Workers, Bad for You
Published July 03, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Big Tobacco can't seem to catch a break these days, poor guys. First everyone starts banning smoking in public because it kills people. Then everyone starts taxing cigarettes because they kill people. And now, all around the world, migrant workers who pick tobacco are making ridiculous requests, like to be paid fairly for their work and not be exposed to deadly chemicals. Poor Big Tobacco!
There is the potential for exploitation in any industry which employs large numbers of migrant workers, and tobacco is no exception. In Malawi, child labor and forced labor have been identified throughout the tobacco industry. In India, children are often enslaved in factories rolling small, unfiltered cigarettes called bidis. Even in the U.S., workers have complained about mistreatment at the hands of employers while picking tobacco.
When I first started researching this issue, I assumed that tobacco is that it is one of the few consumer products which doesn't have a more fair or more sustainable option. Wrong! The UK recently released an ethically-sourced cigarette, which actually gives a portion of the proceeds to support disadvantaged Native American workers. This unexpected dichotomy boggled my progressive brain which commonly defaults to: tobacco=bad, fair trade=good. But what happens when they join forces? My dilemma is illustrated by the contrast between the shiny happy feel-good interracial handshake logo and the giant "SMOKING KILLS" warning on the ethically sourced cigarettes above. Weird.
Can an ethically sourced cigarette be a good thing? Is it just Big Tobacco pushing their addictive, deadly products on children and exploiting their workers which makes the industry terrible, or is it the product itself? Is there a place for small tobacco or fair tobacco? It seems to me that no matter how much the farmers are paid, no matter how much the exploitation is reduced, at the end of the day, it's still a cancer stick.
Image from guardian.co.uk
Las Vegas Cracks Down on Child Prostitution
Published June 27, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Everyone's favorite "hotbed of moral turpitude" city is back in the news again, though this time not because of discussions around legalizing prostitution in the city. On the contrary, this time Sin City is cracking down on child prostitution. According to U.S. law, any person under 18 involved in any form of commercial sex (prostitution, stripping, pornography, etc.) is a victim of human trafficking; anyone who sells that child (i.e., a pimp) is a trafficker. And Vegas's new law, will be one of the toughest in the country against child traffickers.
The law specifically goes after pimps' and traffickers' money, which is the one thing most of them actually care about, the one thing that it would hurt them to lose. If you're a pimp selling a child under 14, Las Vegas can take up to $500,000 from you; if you sell kids 14-17, they can take up to $100,000. This legislative change comes after a 2007 study from Shared Hope International found 400 child trafficking victims being exploited in Las Vegas in a single month. Do the math- Las Vegas is looking at almost 5000 prostituted children a year, which could net the city millions if their pimps are nabbed. Looks like for those pimps, what happens in Vegas will stay in the local government's bank account.
On a related-but-different-note, I've been disappointed by a lot of the media coverage of this law, specifically because the language they use includes phrases like "child prostitutes" and "children working in prostitution". Unlike adult women, children cannot legally choose to "work" in prostituion because they cannot legally consent to sex. Therefore, to refer to a child as a "child prostitute" or the exploitation that is happening to these children as "work" is a misnomer and does not identify the child as a legal victim. Whenever possible, I try and use phrases such as "children in prostitution" or "child trafficking/exploitation victims", which are more accurate.
Despite the issue of imprecise language, I hope this law makes it a lot harder out there to be a pimp who exploits young kids.
Seasonal Slavery: Working in Strawberry Fields Forever
Published June 21, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Strawberry season: for most of us it means fresh ripe berries baked into pies and snacked on at barbecues. But for many other men and women in the world, strawberry season is a season of slavery.
Slavery in the strawberry harvesting industry happens around the world. In one case in the U.S. last year, thirty Mexican workers were enslaved harvesting strawberries in Louisiana. They were threatened with deportation and denied water and bathroom breaks. In Germany, police raided a strawberry field to find 60 enslaved Romanian migrant workers, who were forced to work 13 hours a day for 1 Euro an hour. The Japanese documentary Sour Strawberries recently exposed the issue of forced labor in Japan. All over the world workers, especially poor migrant workers from developing countries, are being enslaved in the name of strawberries.
So why strawberries? How can something so wholesome and delicious be tainted with something so evil as slavery? Harvesting strawberries is difficult, backbreaking work. Since the berries grow on low bushes, pickers must constantly bend to find the berries, and then remove them with care not to bruise the delicate skin. It's also a highly profitable crop- second only to marijuana. The people willing to do this highly difficult and unpleasant work are mostly immigrants who are already vulnerable to exploitation, and those who choose to grow strawberries are highly interested in profit. It's a pairing which allows modern-day slavery to thrive.
So when buying strawberries this season, pay attention to where they are coming from. A family farm that sells to a farmers market? A large company in California? A small country in Latin America? Would you be willing to pay a few cents more to make sure your berries are untainted by slavery? When we shop more consciously and make ethics rather than price the bottom line, we give everyone the chance of having a better strawberry season.
Image from wcoh.ac.uk
Atlanta Proposes Decriminalizing Prostitution for Teens
Published June 20, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
In a bold move, legislation has been proposed in Atlanta this week to decriminalize the act of prostitution for children under 17 years old. And I'm sure you're all shocked to find out that legislation about teenagers, sex, and prostitution has met with.... controversy!
Atlanta has long had a serious problem with young girls being trafficked into prostitution, and has been sometimes called "the child prostitution capital of America." And anyone who's driven through downtown late at night would not disagree that there are very, very young girls out on the streets. And despite some great efforts by the Mayor's office, Atlanta remains a huge destination for young girls forced into commercial sex industries. So will decriminalizing prostitution for teens be the fix?
The article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution leaves out a lot of really important details: Will soliciting a teen prostitute still be criminal for the buyer? What about for the pimp? I can't imagine that the law would pay paying a teen for sex legal, but I haven't heard confirmation either way. If someone has more information and/or the text of the proposed legislation, please share it in the comments.
The controversy over this law is complex and (I'm sure) related to the broader discussion about the relationship between human trafficking and prostitution. On the one hand, advocates argue that these teens are stigmatized by their prostitution arrest(s) for the rest of their lives, and may be more likely to re-enter the industry as adults feeling they have no other choice. On the other hand, some groups argue that sometimes arrest is the only way to get a child off the streets (and away from her pimp) long enough for her to talk to a social worker or call her family. It's an intensely tricky issue.
I'm wondering if anyone in Atlanta has considered alternatives to wholesale decriminalization that would both allow law enforcement to pick up kids in need and prevent them from being stigmatized with a prostitution arrest? Or if decriminalization is the only way, are there other laws (curfew, loitering, etc.) that could help get a girl under pimp control off the street and to a safe place? If anyone from Atlanta with more information about this legislation and the discussion around it is reading, please share your thoughts!
Image from recover-from-grief.com
U.S. Senate Apologizes to African-Americans for Slavery
Published June 19, 2009 @ 10:03AM PT
First off, this is not a spoof, a joke, or an Onion article. In what might be thought of as the biggest case of government procrastination in history, yesterday the U.S. Senate finally got around to apologizing for the U.S. government-sanctioned slavery and slave trade which was written into the Constitution. I'm sure many people will agree when I say, "Thank you... and it's about freakin' time!"
The resolution which contains the apology is official, but not legally binding in any way. So while African-Americans may feel slightly better that their government has at least officially and publicly acknowledged the grave injustices done to them and their ancestors, the government still makes no promise of reparations or compensation for any slave descendants.
On the issue of reparations, Randall Robinson, author of "The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks," said
Much is owed, and it is very quantifiable. It is owed as one would owe for any labor that one has not paid for, and until steps are taken in that direction we haven't accomplished anything.
So while I might applaud the government for finally and officially naming the evil of slavery and acknowledging the people whose lives it destroyed, I think this apology poor comfort for the homeless African-American men who live on my block and struggle with addiction and finding work. They are living out the legacy of injustice, inequality and slavery.
And I would ask the African-American readers of this blog. Do you accept the apology?
Image from blog.nashvillescene.com
U.S., Europe Tackle Diplomats as Traffickers
Published June 18, 2009 @ 06:05AM PT
A few years ago, a Tanzanian man living in Maryland enslaved a girl in his home, forcing her to work for no pay in horrid conditions, including forcing her to shovel snow in her bare feet. Was this man a war lord? A career criminal or mob boss? No. He was a diplomat.
While it may seem shocking that diplomats can be traffickers, it is not at all uncommon. It's usual for a diplomat or his family to bring over someone from their home country (usually female) to work (usually in the home). However, the trafficking begins when that working situation becomes exploitative- the worker cannot leave, wages are withheld, beatings administered, sexual advances made, etc.
The U.S., France, and Belgium are all focusing on developing strategies to identify and bring to justice this particularly slippery brand of trafficker. Why are they so difficult to hold accountable? Diplomats enjoy something called "diplomatic immunity", which basically means they can't be sued or prosecuted while doing their jobs. There are more complex laws regarding what under what circumstances a diplomat can be held accountable legally, but immunity makes diplomats much harder to prosecute than average citizens. It's a great protection for diplomats doing their jobs in conflict zones, but also unfortunately for diplomats who traffic workers.
It's an uphill battle, but there are ways to better protect diplomats' workers. The U.S. is building a database to better track diplomats' workers, while France is working to improve victim identification in this population. Belgium has started prosecuting diplomatic offenders. Hopefully, the example set by these three countries will lead others to recognize that diplomat-traffickers are a real issue, and that not some traffickers will appear to upstanding citizens on the outside. To know the truth, we must look beneath the surface.
Image from upload.wikimedia.org
Congress Writes Letter to Craigslist, Requests "Adult Services" Changes
Published June 17, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Led by Representative Carolyn Maloney, several Members of Congress have signed on to a letter addressed to Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, and James Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist requesting real and substantive changes as they revamp their "erotic services" section into their "adult services" section.
The full text of the letter is included here at the bottom, but the gist is that these members of congress, most of whom have been instrumental in drafting anti-trafficking legislation, want some assurances that the new "adult services" section on Craigslist will be substantively different than the old "erotic services" section. Now I grew up in the South and heard that old cliche "the devil is in the details" a number of times, but in this case I think it's very true. How will Craigslist implement and enforce new these new standards? The answer to that question will ultimately determine whether this represents a real effort to reduce exploitation on their site by the company or a PR move to get the activists (us) off their backs.
I was both surprised and impressed by the intiative this letter shows, and by the attention to detail the signatory members of congress seem to have. Do you think that this message from Congress will influence how Craigslist implements their new regulations?
