Trafficking in Children
"No Good Jobs": Sokha and Makara's True Story of Slavery
Published November 05, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
Sokha and Makara's stories were originally collected by Stop the Traffick. In this case, a serious family illness put these young girls at risk for trafficking. Often, when given the choice between sending a child to work and watching another family member die, parents will send their children away with desparte hopes of money. Here is their story:
Sokha and Makara are from Poipet in Cambodia. When they were just 14 and 15 years old, their mother was ill with a liver problem. The family needed money to pay for the medicine to treat her. They also hoped to buy some land to build a home. A man promised good jobs for the girls in nearby Thailand, and offered the family some money if they would let them go. Sokha and Makara were excited at the thought of being able to help the family with the money they earned. The reality turned out to be very different.
The man was a trafficker. There were no ‘good jobs' for the girls in Thailand. Sokha's mother died within a year, and the family couldn't afford to buy the land that they had dreamed of. Sokha, who is now 17, says, ‘I felt cheated. The traffickers used us for slave jobs, and while they earned lots of money, we only got enough to feed ourselves each day.' She explains how she and Makara, 16, were given jobs selling fruit, but it did not pay enough. So they were forced to work even harder and to do work that they didn't enjoy.
Sokha and Makara's story has a happy ending because of the Cambodian Hope Organization (CHO) that works with Tearfund, a relief and development agency. Sokha and Makara's parents met with CHO and gave them photos to pass on to an organization in Thailand that rescues trafficked girls. The girls were found and rescued about a year after their ordeal started.
What is unusual about this story is not that the sisters were trafficked, but that they were kept together for the duration of their enslavement. Many traffickers will try and isolate and disorient victims, which often means cutting them off from friends and family. However, having a sister close by may have been the key to helping these two young women survive slavery.
Photo credit: thomaswanhoff
Bacha Bazi: Afghan Tradition Expolits Young Boys
Published November 02, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Two subjects within the field of human trafficking are too often ignored: cultural traditions of slavery and the sale of boys in the commercial sex industry. CNN recently shed light on both of these in an article about the Afghan tradition of bacha bazi, or "boy play". It's a cultural tradition for many powerful Afghan men, but it's modern-day slavery for the boys who live through it.
Bacha bazi is illegal in Afghanistan, but the practice is still thriving. Boys are taken from their families at a young age and sold or given to wealthy and powerful business men, politicians, and military commanders. The boys are dressed in women's clothing and makeup and forced to dance to entertain their master and his guests. They are also forced to perform sex acts on their master or his guests. The few boys who are able to escape their slavery have a difficult time ever making a living doing anything else. They are forever branded in society as a bacha bereesh, or a "boy without a beard," a boy who dances and dresses as a woman.
Their plight is not unlike that of women forced into sexual performance or prostitution, who also have a difficult time being accepted into society and finding work after their ordeal. Bacha bazi boys often return to the industry even after they have left, because they have no other means to support themselves. Women who have been forced into commercial sex often do the same. Perhaps so many similarities exist because bacha bazi feminizes these boys in order to degrade them. By forcing them to perform in women's clothes and by raping them, this tradition not only seeks to humiliate these boys for the pleasure of wealthy men, but also to reinforce the idea that women are inferior and for a boy to have feminine affectations is degrading for him. It's a window into the severe gender inequality that pervades Afghanistan.
What I found most interesting about bacha bazi is the prevalence of a tradition based around same sex rape and gender-bending performance in a severely homophobic country like Afghanistan.
Sex Buys Survival for Runaway Kids
Published October 28, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Nothing calls attention to an issue like an article in the New York Times, and this time the media giant has deigned to shine its blinding spotlight upon domestic minor sex trafficking -- sorta. Never once in the article does the author use the term "trafficking victim" the describe the children in question -- American kids who run away from home and end up in prostitution either for survival or under pimp control. But legally in the U.S., any child under 18 involved in commercial sex is a trafficking victim. Semantics aside, though, the issue of American youth coerced and forced into prostitution by pimps is a significant and growing problem.
Author Ian Urbina gives prostituted runaway youth a face in Roxanne L., a 16-year-old girl from Queens who was picked up for prostitution. Dan Garrabrant, the detective questioning her, has only one hour before he must turn her over to social services. If in that hour he can get her to admit that she has a pimp, he can get her off the street and into victim services. He tries everything -- pushing, commiserating, talking about other stuff, offering safety -- but nothing can get her to admit that she has a pimp. His initials are tatooed on her body, but she denies he even exists overt and over. At the end of the interview, Garrabrant is forced to release Roxanne to a youth shelter. Her body is found several days later, killed by the pimp she insisted never existed. Roxanne is not the first, nor will she be the last, child to die at the hands of her pimp.
Out of the 1.6 million children who run away from home each year, about one third (or over 530,000) trade sex acts for tools of survival like food, shelter, warmth, drugs to feed an addiction, or the promise of protection and companionship.
Man Sells Foster Daughter Into Prostitution
Published October 26, 2009 @ 01:24PM PT
Pimps can be strangers to their child victims, but they are often someone the victim trusts, like a boyfriend, a parent, or a family member. In a case out of Maryland recently, Shelby Lewis sold his 12-year-old foster daughter, along with three other girls, into prostitution -- the price of the "rent" he charged them for living in his home. This case is an excellent case study of what domestic minor sex trafficking looks like in the U.S., since it has a number of very common factors present.
- First, the victim was a part of the foster care system. It's common for American girls who are eventually trafficked by pimps to have been in foster care at one point in their lives. The connection between foster care and trafficking is due to both the vulnerability of young people without stable homes and the dysfunction of many foster care systems in the U.S.
Second, the pimp was someone the victim knew as a protector. While pimps can be strangers, they often approach victims first as boyfriends, friends, stepfathers, family members, etc. They groom the victim to rely on them and then claim, as Lewis did, that the cost of their protection and love is prostitution.
Third, the victims started in their early teens. Lewis first began pimping his foster daughter out when she was 12. He also sold three other girls, who he began exploiting at 13, 14, and 16. The average age of entry into prostitution is 12-14 in the U.S., so the ages of the victims in this case are typical.
Fourth, one of his victims was registered with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It's not unusual for children who are reported missing, either as runaways or as kidnapping victims, end up in the hands of pimps like Lewis.
Lastly, child pornography makes an appearance in this case, as it does in many others. Lewis had pictures of his victims tied to beds in sexual poses at his apartment. Pimps can earn money by selling pornographic images of the girls they exploit in addition to selling the girls themselves.
While one of these factors might not be present in all cases of domestic minor sex trafficking, they are certainly present in a number of them. This case is an example of how the issue of child trafficking in the U.S. is deeply connected to the need for reform of the foster care system and better education for girls. The questions this case begs are much broader than just those related to human trafficking: Why are foster youths so susceptible to trafficking? Why are men buying girls so young for sex? It's a reminder that we must always view trafficking within the context of social issues pimps utilize to help them traffic girls.
Photo credit: EOS Cameroun
Taken in the Night: Martin's True Story of Slavery
Published October 21, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
This story is originally from Reuters. While Uganda has become the most famous backdrop for stories of children trafficked to become child soldiers, it is not the only country where they are currently being exploited. Child soldiers have been used in conflicts all over Asia and Africa, including being used by the Taliban as suicide bombers. But Martin's story represents the experience of many child soldiers in Uganda.
I was 10 years old when the Lord's Resistance Army came to my door in the middle of the night. They ordered me to leave my home and come with them. In my district, we had heard about the atrocities they were committing, and so we were all terrified. The men looted my house, taking chickens, goats, and clothes. Then they took me. My cousins and I, along with other boys, were tied together by our hands. For one whole day we walked like that, trying to dodge the Ugandan army. We walked for a week, until we arrive in southern Sudan to begin our training.
During the day we were taught how to march and how to handle a gun. The mane in charge told us we needed to be ready for battle because President Yoweri Museveni had ordered the Karamoja to ome and raid all the cattle in the countryside and abuse and kill our families. We were told to overthrow the government, which would make Joseph Kony president and life better for us. The commanders told us that overthrowing the government was our main goal, a goal we should be willing to die for. The older boys were the security for the training camp -- forced to kill children if they tried to escape. They did it with a wooden club, and all the children were forced to watch as the offending child was beaten to death. It was meant to be a warning to us all. You would be beaten if you broke even the simplest rules, like not eating pork or shea nut butter. But you would be killed to trying to escape.
I saw my first battle at age 12. I was petrified and freezing, since we were attacking at dawn. Yet, somehow, I survived. For years I kept hopeful that someday I would be able to return home and go back to school. Maybe one day I would be chosen to be part of an operation in Uganda, and from there I could escape home. But that never happened. Instead, we moved from south Sudan to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The commanders claimed the war would be over by 2006, and we could all return home. When it didn't I decided with three others to escape. We managed to sneak away, walking three days until we reached a place near Aba in Congo. There, we found the Congolese army, surrendered ourselves, and explained our situation. News of my escape was broadcast over the radio, and my little brother came to meet me. We were overjoyed to see each other again.
Martin is now free and hopes to go back to school to continue his education.
Photo credit: babasteve
Mainstream Media Calls Teen Sex Trafficking Victim a Criminal
Published October 19, 2009 @ 04:44PM PT
Human trafficking is not black and white, and all those different shades of nuance require the media to use that gray matter that fills up their heads. Unfortunately, the mainstream media often has their heads so far up their asses that actual analysis becomes a difficult, smelly task. Take the recent case of a Phoenix, AZ teen who was sentenced to three years in jail for soliciting other underage girls into prostitution. The twist that the media missed? She was convicted of the crime that she was a victim of herself.
The basic story is that Jazmine was 17 years old and in prostitution herself when she began recruiting other teen girls into the lifestyle. All minors under 18 in prostitution are legally human trafficking victims, so Jazmine was one of them. She and her 16-year-old friend arranged dates for girls as young as 14, charging as little as $50 per sex act. She got caught, was tried as a criminal as opposed to being treated as a victim, and now must spend three years behind bars and live with a criminal record. Jazmine's case is not an easy one. Yes, she knowingly recruited teen girls into prostitution, though it was against the law. But she was also a victim of teen prostitution herself. These girls weren't people she had physical, social, or economic power over and were exploiting; they were her peers. While Jazmine's actions may have been illegal, her circumstances are completely different than the more common situation -- an adult man forces or coerces a young girl into prostitution.
The case may be murky, but what it has made plexi-glass clear is how little the mainstream media understands child trafficking in prostitution. I would bet my hefty blogger salary that Jazmine was recruited into prostitution herself, probably by an older man like a family member or boyfriend. But no mention is made in any media coverage I found of that likelihood. Perhaps Jazmine was protecting the person who introduced her to prostitution. Perhaps no one thought to ask her how she got started. But the truth is that young teen girls don't just decide to go into prostitution -- they almost always have some grooming.
But perhaps the greatest failure of the mainstream media in the coverage of this case was that they published the photos and full names of Jazmine and her friend. And they did it a long time before any conviction took place. Regardless of what these girls have been accused of or even what they are guilty of, they are and were first victims of the crime they perpetrated. The fact that they did something illegal doesn't diminish their right to some protection as victims, part of which is the privacy of not having their photos plastered across television and the Internet. Living through the experience of being in prostitution as a teen is enough of a burden without spending the rest of your life fighting that stigma publicly. I'll buy the argument that despite her victimization, Jazmine deserves some level of punishment for her crime, but she also deserves a chance to put this is behind her. She's a new mother, and she deserves a fresh start for her and her family.
The cynical parts of me wonder if Jazmine were whiter or thinner or from a wealthier background, would she have been so disregarded as a victim and cast as a criminal? The really, really cynical parts of me wonder if the mainstream media is so clueless about child trafficking in the U.S., that even a change in race, appearance, or money wouldn't have helped her? But the optimist in me gives those cynical parts a solid kick in the shins and reminds me that every time the mainstream media misses the truth due to Headstuckinass Syndrome, there is an opportunity for education.
Photo credit: speednutdave
Sweet Sugar for Us, Bitter Life for Bolivian Children
Published October 12, 2009 @ 01:00PM PT
Luis is thirteen now, but he first left school to work full-time harvesting sugarcane when he was ten. He spends all day, sometimes up to 14 hours, every day cutting, hauling, and chopping the plants to be eventually processed into chocolate and slurpies and cupcakes for Americans and other wealthy Westerners. It's dangerous and incredibly difficult work. But Luis is not alone. He is just one of around 320,000 children in Bolivia thought to be exploited in child labor. And sugarcane production is one of the worst forms exploitative child labor.
Exploited and forced child labor in sugar production is an issue all over the world, from the Philippines to Bolivia. Sugarcane harvesting is an industry in which child labor and slave labor thrive for a number of reasons. First of all, the price of raw sugar today is the highest it's been in over 30 years, which is causing many farmers who left the industry to switch back. The crop is also an economic draw for poor and migrant families; the long growing season and multiple harvests provide steady income roughly between April and November, longer than most crops. Harvesting sugarcane is a dangerous and dirty task since most of it is still done manually. The crops must be cut in the field, burned to remove unwanted foliage, and then chopped down the canes. They also must be stacked and loaded for transportation and processing. All of these factors mean that the job of harvesting sugarcane often go the the most powerless -- children and slaves.
Too much of the sugar available at the grocery store today and used to the create sweet treats that we enjoy come from places like Bolivia and the Philippines, where large portions of the industry uses child and exploited labor to harvest the sugarcane. In part, exploitation is so prolific because of a global demand for cheap sugar. And we are the people who are demanding that sugar.
So how can you reduce that demand and help reduce child labor in sugar? The easiest step is to buy Fair Trade sugar at the grocery store. Increasingly, grocery stores are carrying Fair Trade staples, like sugar and coffee, but they may still be difficult to find in some areas. If that's the case, you can buy it online.
But if you're busy and/or domestically-challenged like me, you're not making a lot of cookies from scratch. So how can you make a difference? There are a number of ways you can encourage the products you buy and the businesses you frequent to buy Fair Trade sugar. Does your workplace provide coffee and sugar for employees? Try creating a petition for Fair Trade sugar. Do you have a favorite coffee shop or bakery? Let them know that you're concerned about the sugar you eat being made by exploited children. When businesses hear from customers they value, they are more likely to meet those customers' requests and increase demand for fairly-produced sugar.
Child exploitation in the sugar industry is a serious problem, but it's something you can help by making better choices about the sugar you buy and encouraging businesses to do the same. When sugar is fair, it can be a sweet life for all of us.
Photo credit: dweekly
