Trafficking in Children
How Our Tobacco Habit Kills Malawian Children
Published August 29, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Malawi's children are being slowly killed by tobacco, but not tobacco they're smoking. They're being killed by tobacco those of us in the U.S. and Europe are smoking. That's because Malawi's booming and dangerous tobacco industry is a huge exploiter of child labor, all in the name of serving a Western nicotine addiction.
In Malawi, 78,000 children, some as young as five, work 12-hour days to produce cigarettes. Some are literally paid pennies an hour for this difficult labor. Few earn what would be considered a "living wage." But for Malawian children in the tobacco industry, the lack of fair pay is the least of their worries. On a humid day (of which Malawi has several), the average child worker can be exposed to up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine- the equivalent of 32 cigarettes! These kids are reaping the heath consequences of a pack-and-a-half-a-day habit without ever lighting up. One teen boy described the health problems as such,
We even carry on coughing at home. It starts as a little cough, but it goes on for a long time. Sometimes it feels like you don't have enough breath, you don't have enough oxygen. Yes, you reach a point where you cannot breathe in because of the pain in your chest. Then the blood comes and you vomit, you vomit blood. At the end, most of this dies and then you remain with a headache.
The relationship that Malawi has with tobacco is rooted, if dysfunctional and incestuous. Tobacco is Malawi's biggest export, and accounts for about 70 percent of their income from exports. Malawi is the fifth largest producer of tobacco in the world. So where does all this tobacco from Malawi go? Mostly, to the U.S. and Europe.
On the Philip Morris website, they claim that they "do not condone the unlawful employment or exploitation of children in the workplace, nor do we condone forced labor." However, they also don't list where their tobacco is sourced from or any specific regulations they require their suppliers to meet. Their Child and Forced Labor Policy is about as firm and healthy as the lungs of a lifetime smoker. And Philip Morris is just one company- tobacco companies all over the world buy Malawian tobacco.
Is it shocking that tobacco companies care as much about the health of the Malawian children who produce their products as they do about the Western children who smoke their products? Not really. Is it one more reason not to light up? Definitely.
Polygamy and Prostitution
Published August 27, 2009 @ 12:50PM PT
What do men who use prostitutes and polygamists have in common? According to Marci Hamilton, quite a lot. They are both populations of men who get away with raping, abusing, and degrading women, even in places where what they're doing is illegal. And like polygamists, johns are rarely prosecuted.
I've never really heard johns and polygamists compared in such stark terms, but I think Hamilton may be on to something. Both prostitution and polygamy reduce a woman to a commodity. In prostitution, a woman becomes an object, a tool for the pleasure of a man no more human than a sex toy. Because the transaction of prostitution is about money, (not mutual desire, affection or pleasure), it commodifies as woman's body and values it only as a means of male pleasure. In polygamy, a woman also becomes an object, though in this case a tool of reproduction, social status, and occasionally pleasure for a man. Polygamy, as is practiced in fundamentalist religious communities, values women as commodities- suppliers of children. They are just as much a machine designed to work for men as women in prostitution are.
Prostitution and polygamy are both symptomatic and catalystic of a fundamental gender inequality, where women are objectified and commodified without regard to their humanity or agency. And yet, the male perpetrators of both these crimes, the johns and the polygamist husbands, are rarely held accountable for their actions. I once worked on a case where a 40-something man was caught having sex with a 15-year-old girl, for whom he had paid $200. The police arrested the girl, put her in the back of the cop car, and brought her to jail. They told the man what he was doing was wrong, but let him drive away. When asked later why the cop let the john go, he replied,
"He had a wife, and I thought it would be bad to embarrass him like that."
Having sex with a kid should be embarrassing! It sould be a lot more embarrassing, in fact, it should result in an actual punishment. How are we afraid to embarass men who are engaging in prostitution, but we're not afraid to embarass the women and girls?
What interests me the most about the parallels between prostitution and polygamy is that many people who see prostitution as an opportunity for empowerment for women see polygamy as the opposite. In fact, I would argue the contrary. Prostitution and polygamy share more common values than dissimilar ones. Those values include a view of women as tools of men, female bodies as tradable commodities, and social superiority of men over women.
Photo credit: Jasonsager
FREE Fair Trade Chocolate (Seriously)!
Published August 27, 2009 @ 07:30AM PT
Halloween rocks! It's not too early to be thinking about your Halloween plans, in fact, I've been trying to decide what to be for weeks now. There are the mainstays of Halloween we all love: costumes, candy, ghoulish goodness. But this year, why not try something a little different with your Halloween and take yourself and/or the kids in your life reverse trick-or-treating?
Reverse trick-or-treating is exactly what it sounds like. You knock on doors and when folks answer, you yell "trick or treat". Except, instead of accepting delicious candy from the adults inside, you give them a piece of Fair Trade chocolate with a card that talks about how Fair Trade chocolate helps prevent slavery and protect the environment. And the best part is, you can get a FREE reverse trick-or-treating kit from the Fair Trade Resource Network, including Fair Trade chocolate to distribute and everything you need to go reverse trick-or-treating.
I love this idea because it's a great and easy way for parents to get their kids involved in social activism (and a way for parents to reduce the overflow of candy that comes with Halloween). It's also a smart way to educate people about the realities of the chocolate industrywith a sweeter (i.e. chocolate flavored) wrapping. Plus, it shows the recipients of the Fair Trade treats that next year there are better alternatives to the chocolate you find in the grocery store.
The deadline for groups to request their kits is October 1 and for individuals it's October 13. But this offer is only valid while the free chocolate lasts, so hurry up and order yours today!
Now if only someone would help me pick out a Halloween costume....
Teen Trafficking Survivor Gets Life Without Parole
Published August 25, 2009 @ 05:00PM PT
These days, the Rhodes scholars of the criminal justice system seem to like locking people up for life the way Mark Sanford likes frequent filer miles on Aerolineas. Well, they've managed another winner: sentencing 16-year-old trafficking victim Sara Kruzan to die in prison for killing her pimp. My partner-in-crime-blogging Matt has the criminal justice perspective on what happened, but here's how things look from Sara's perspective.
When Sara met G.G., the 31-year-old man who would become her pimp, she was 11. Sara's mom struggled with drug addiction, so when G.G. would drive Sara and her friends to the roller skating rink or the mall, it felt like having a real parent around. He gave Sara presents and told her she was special- so special, that she should never give sex away for free. He convinced her she was a product.
G.G. groomed Sara like this for two years before he raped her. By then, his control was complete and he forced her into prostitution. Sara and the other girls who G.G. exploited were out on the streets from 6pm to 6am, every night. Twelve hours a night, seven days a week, for three years, Sara was raped by strangers so G.G. could profit. After three years, she snapped, and she killed him.
Surviving sexual violence is one of the most difficult things in the world. Surviving repeated sexual violence as a child doubtlessly takes its mental and physical toll. G.G. stole Sara's 8th, 9th, and 10th grade years- money and rape taking the place of dances and dates. How can a person ever recover from something like that? But Sara survived.
What Sara did was terrible, and she knows it. But if ever there are mitigating circumstances for a crime, these are them. To tell someone like Sara who has overcome such abuse that her destiny is to die in prison, no matter how much she changes, is cruel.
The vast majority of women in prison have histories of abuse from families and/or intimate partners. Does this mean they are not accountable for their actions? Of course not. Murder should always be punished. But Sara Kruzan's case is one of ludicrous over-sentencing of a young girl who escaped from hell in a heinous way.
Sara Kruzan deserves to be punished. But she also deserves hope. She deserves hope that she didn't survive being raped and sold for three years for nothing. She deserves hope that the darkest chapter of her life has passed, and a horizon lies ahead. She deserves hope that she can change.
But in Sara Kruzan's life without parole, there is no hope.
Pedophile Beards
Published August 20, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Not that I ever goof around on Facebook when I'm bored at work, but if I had, I might have stumbled upon a link to a satirical infomercial for a product called Pedophile Beards. The video is obviously meant to be funny. However, my sense of humor has been a little warped from years of violence against women and children work and too many Red Bull-fueled late night comedy shows. So is this funny? Why or why not?
While this video may appeal to some senses of humor more than others, it brings up an excellent point: we have a very clear picture in our heads of what a pedophile looks like. He's a white guy in his 40s with an outdated fashion sense and, perhaps, some unwieldy facial hair. But like all stereotypes, identifying pedophiles on the basis of what they look like means missing a lot of people who would seek to have sex with children.
There's a prevailing idea that the men who buy children for sex are like the guy in this ad- obviously creepy. They're not. They're fire fighters and policemen and teachers and businessmen. They have wives and children and families of their own. Some seek out children for sex, while others just want someone "young and fresh", regardless of the girl's age. And because they don't wear signs (or glasses) that declare "I am a child predator", they are much harder to identify. It's important for us to recognize that a beard does not a pedophile make.
Thankfully, unlike this video may claim, looking like a pedophile isn't popular. Acting like one by buying sex with children is, unfortunately, becoming increasingly so. Maybe it's time we started a new trend?
How Natural Disasters Make Children Slaves
Published August 20, 2009 @ 07:22AM PT
Natural disasters can destroy homes, raze farmlands, and devastate families. They can wipe out whole communities in moments and cause damage that costs millions of dollars to repair. But can natural disasters turn children into slaves? According to a recent report from ECPAT International, they sure can.
ECPAT International found increases in trafficking of children after severe droughts in Swaziland in 2007 and flooding in India in 2008. In Swaziland, an increased number of children were pulled out of school; their families traded their bodies for food and water. In India, children were sent to work as bricklayers and seamstresses to make up for destroyed business. Other girls left vulnerable by the floods were sold as brides into forced marriages.
But natural disasters aren't the only tragedies that push children into slavery; man-made conflicts can be just as devastating. Children in the Congo, Guinea, and other West African nations living in refugee camps are trading sex for basic supplies and food. In some cases, the adults who exploit them include camp leaders, teachers, and humanitarian aid workers.
So how do natural disasters and conflicts turn children into slaves? For the most part, these children were already vulnerable to human trafficking before the disaster struck. They were living at some level of poverty with little education and few resources. The disaster pushes children and their families over the edge into destitution and desperation. Sometimes the disaster causes a family to send a child away to work, a risk that ends in slavery. Sometimes the family must marry off daughters they cannot feed. Sometimes criminal businessmen will traffic children to regain profits lost to a natural disaster. The possibilities are as endless as the supply of children whose lives the disaster has destroyed.
Human trafficking is deeply connected to and propelled by hurricanes, floods, fires, tsunamis, and other natural disasters. And it's also deeply connected to civil wars and other armed conflicts. So the next time you hear about a natural disaster, remember that once the emergency aid organizations leave, the nightmare isn't over. And for some children, the nightmare is just beginning.
Image from ens-newswire.com
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.
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