Trafficking in Women
West Africa to EU: Major Sex Trafficking Circuit
Published July 31, 2009 @ 08:07AM PT
A report released by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime this week identified a major and continuous trafficking route from Western Africa to Western Europe. Most of the people moved along this route are women and girls from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Cameroon on their way to be forced into prostitution in the Netherlands, Italy, Belgium and other EU countries. You can read the report here.
According to the report, this trafficking circuit is huge. It moves between 3800 and 5700 women into the EU annually, to the tune of over $200 million dollars a year. And yet despite those huge numbers, it is estimated that West African trafficking victims comprise only about 10% of the trafficking victims enslaved in commercial sex in Western Europe. If $200 million dollars is only a tiny percentage of the money being made through forced prostitution in Europe, imagine how much money exists in the industry as a whole. We're talking billions of dollars generated by the enslavement of human beings all over Europe. And when there is that much money to be had by the criminals, you can be the crime becomes harder to fight.
The system usually used on this circuit is debt bondage. The trafficker gives the victim a "loan" of somewhere between $40,000 and $55,000 to cover the costs of entry into the EU, usually including false documents, transportation, housing, etc. The trafficker then creates a "contract" detailing the method and time period of repayment. However, victims are often deceived about the nature and conditions of work awaiting them. Even if the victims know they will be engaging in prostitution in Europe, they are often lied to about the working conditions, their ability to leave or say "no", or the amount of money they will get to keep. Victims are then forced into prostitution on the traffickers terms "until the debt is repaid", which is sometimes never.
More often than not, victims are flown in (another reason we need better training for immigration personnel at airports). Adult women may be presented as the trafficker's wife or newly hired maid. Minor girls are often told to ask for asylum, after which they are placed temporarily in a juvenile shelter. It's easy for the trafficker to then take the girl from the shelter. Once in the EU, the victims are often rotated between countries or cities. This serves the dual purpose of keeping the faces (and bodies) changing for the male buyers and keeping the victims disoriented and confused.
This route is one which the international community has known about for a long time. But because of the hidden nature of the crime, it is still thriving.
Does Craigslist Think We're Stupid?
Published July 29, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
These days, Craigslist is looking more and more like a naughty child who keeps getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. That is, if the cookie jar were illegal prostitution and pimping of children. It's time for real change.
Amid increasing pressure (some of it from you, dear readers) two months ago, Craigslist agreed to replace their "Erotic Services" section with the more euphemistically-named "Adult Services" section, as if it now offers mostly wine classes and tax preparation. However, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart who sued Craigslist last year claims that prostitution is still thriving in the Adult Services section under a thin veneer.
According to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the rampant prostitution ads on Craigslist are
"...so thinly disguised, the real question is how they are permitted to be there if, in fact, the site is doing the screening and policing that they said they will do."
The pressure on Craigslist to remove their "Erotic Services" section stemmed from several cases of minor and adult human trafficking victims being sold via Craigslist. Craigslist claims the new section has strict qualifications to help avoid the exploitation of minors, but they have not yet released what those qualifications are.
I thought, perhaps, as Craigslist claims, all these sheriffs and attorney generals are only attacking the company for personal or political reasons. So I hopped onto Craigslist to see what I could find. Here are a few of the ad titles:
- Bodywork By Black Stunning Transsexual Beauty
- $100- Super Hot Grad student for massage
- S.U.P.E.R.S.T.A.C.K.E.D.massage
- Young sweet Asian girl massage
- Sexy Sexy Sexy Sexy Sexy Sexy
In most of the ads I looked at, the massage skills of the "masseuse" were not mentioned at all, whereas their supposed ages, physical attributes, and prices were described in detail. Sometime, obvious euphemisms like "100 roses per half hour" or "200 diamonds" are used in place of dollar signs.
Unlike Craigslist, I don't think you're stupid. I think you can look at the ads in Craigslist's Adult Services section and tell if they look like ads for legitimate massages, Or if they look like the same escort and prostitution businesses, some of which were pimping minors, that have been on advertised on Craigslist since its inception. Congress has already called Craigslist on their lack of real change. Now you can tell Craigslist you see through their game too, and you're not stupid.
The All-You-Can-Screw Buffet At Danish Brothels
Published July 23, 2009 @ 08:06AM PT
It's tough economic times all over the world, and if the all-you-can-eat buffet is the answer for the struggling restaurant industry, then why not the "all-you-can-screw" promotion in Danish brothels?
This issue recently came to the attention of an anti-trafficking organization when five Eastern European women were forced to participate in this offer at a suburban brothel outside of Copenhagen. The women were forced to perform unlimited sex acts for 900 Kroners (or $170). The organization was tipped off to the situation when a customer complained how little the women were being paid.
Prostitution, like most industries, is seeing an increase in customers looking for a bargain as unemployment rates remain high all over the world. To attract more customers and fetch a higher price, some women have had to offer to engage in acts which they refused to engage in before because they are demeaning or dangerous.
This trend of discount prostitution is frightening, because it indicates a rise in children in prostitution, women in prostitution against their will, and women being abused and controlled by pimps. As prostitution prices drop and discounts like the "all-you-can-screw" package become more popular, the few women in prostitution who control their own prices and work will be pushed out by the cheaper and likely trafficked competition. In the same way diners looking for a discount may be visiting a Golden Corral rather than a Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, prostitution customers may choose the $30 Ukrainian woman over the more expensive Dutch woman. Chances are the former is cheaper because she's not really keeping that money.
All-you-can-eat buffets may be cheap, but they're not really that good or that good for you. All discounts have a price, and prostitution is no exception.
Image from rageagainstthemachine.com
Nigerian Baby Farms Breed Slaves from Slaves
Published July 21, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
I wish this article were a joke, and that the term "baby farm" was an exaggeration for what is happening to teen girls and their children in Nigeria. It's not. Nigerian girls are being trafficked to breed children in factory farm-like conditions to then be harvested and sold. Both the teens and their children are victims of the baby harvesting industry.
Here's how the baby farm operation works. Poor teen girls are lured into traffickers' hands in many of the ways traffickers lure teen girls for sex- promises of jobs, money, love, or stability. But instead of simply enslaving these girls in a traditional brothel, the traffickers bring them to an illegal clinic where they are raped until they become pregnant. During the pregnancy, they are cared for medically. After they give birth, the babies are sold into slavery for anywhere between $2,500 and $3,800 and the girls are paid $170 for their baby and their "work".
These clinics operate like a factory farm- the seeds are sown via rape into the teen mothers. The babies are then allowed to germinate, are harvested, and are sold as a commodity. I have rarely in my years working with human trafficking systems seen a process so completely dehumanizing to all the people involved. The girls are treated not just as objects but as factories, and the babies are treated as a product. A disturbing addition to this already disturbing story is the fact that some of these children are adopted by well-meaning parents, who believe the clinic is a legitimate adoption agency. They see the payment as an adoption fee and don't realize their child was created via human trafficking and rape in order to turn a profit. Other children, however, are not sold to well-meaning parents at all. Some are sold into slavery.
Thus far, I don't know of any confirmed cases of baby farms outside of Nigeria where the teen mothers were trafficked into the situation. There have been reports of baby farms in other countries like India where the women were all supposedly participating of their own free will. But I cannot help but believe that where there is a profit to be had by the sale of human beings, there will be traffickers willing to do what it takes to make that profit. This is not a uniquely Nigerian crime- in fact, Nigeria has laws preventing the sale of children in the same way the U.S. and the UK and many other countries do.
The photo above is a little tongue-in-cheek, but the reality of these girls' experiences is bleak. The outlook for some of their children is no brighter.
Will 2010 Olympics and World Cup Boost Forced Prostitution?
Published July 14, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Next year promises to be a big one for sports fans, with the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada and the World Cup in South Africa. But will those same events make it a big year for pimps and traffickers as well? Do major sporting events boost forced prostitution?
There are competing answers, with both sides using statistics from former world-wide sporting events to support their position. The Future Group recently released a report stating that there was a significant risk of increased trafficking into prostitution in Vancouver during the upcoming Olympics. They cite the comparison of the 2004 Athens Olympics, during which the number of trafficking victims identified in Greece doubled. On the other hand, a different report from Vancouver's Sex Worker Safety Action group says that there will be no significant increase in women forced into prostitution during the Olympics. They cite the 2006 World Cup in Germany, which had no significant increase in the number of trafficking victims identified, despite the high estimates from advocacy groups. It seems very little data is available from the 2008 Beijing games, due to the Chinese government's data censorship.
The logical basis behind the argument that major sporting events pose a threat to increase trafficking of women and children into commercial sex is that these events draw massive numbers of men into one place. Sometimes these men are single, traveling without their families, or in a group of friends; sometimes they are drinking. It stands to reason that some of these men might demand commercial sex as entertainment during their trip, and traffickers will supply the women to meet that increased demand.
It's logical, yes, but does it happen? Athens saw a spike in human trafficking, but Germany did not. Was the difference the prevention campaigns which were conducted in Germany? Was the Olympics perceived as more profitable by the traffickers than the World Cup? Were men at the World Cup in Germany less interested in buying sex than the men in Greece? We may not know for sure, at least not until we have better information.
Both Vancouver and South Africa, as well as a number of international organizations, are preparing for the possible increase in human trafficking in 2010. I hope that other groups are also preparing to collect better data at these events as well, so we can continue to better understand what sorts of events motivate traffickers to force women into prostitution and how we can prevent them from doing so in the future. It would be a true celebration if 2010 were known only for excellence in athletics, and not in exploitation.
NYC Teens Tackle Child Sex Trafficking Via Digital Film
Published July 01, 2009 @ 07:30AM PT
What do you get when you combine a group of New York City teens, digital animation, and a passion for ending child sex trafficking? You get Discovered, a machinima (digital animation created by filming video games) film on child sex trafficking, produced entirely by high school students. You also get a group of teens who know what it means to put the "act" in activism.
"We picked child sex trafficking because it wasn't as popular, people don't talk about it as much," said Megan Butcher, 17, one of the filmmakers. "We want more people to be aware of this problem and we hope it will end soon."
Discovered was created as part of the Virtual Video Project, a project of Global Kids, which works to transform urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences. This past weekend, the filmmakers presented their work at the first annual (o.o) Festival on digital media. The youth project fair featured a wide variety of digital media, including digital comics, serious game designs, animated movies, assistive technology projects, and do-it-yourself tech support. But it was the Global Kids Youth Leaders who innovatively used digital animation and design to educate their peers about issues of human trafficking.
"I hope when people watch this movie, they will feel that there is a problem, that this can happen to anyone easily," says Evin Cruz, 16, of his film. "Now they are aware of this, they can help. I hope people can be more aware of what goes on, and I hope the government can play a stronger role in what's happening to end the suffering."
You can watch Discovered below. It tells the story of a young girl who is lured from her home in Mexico to America, the abuses she suffers while in the U.S., and the challenges the government faces in combating human trafficking. It is eloquently written, creative, and mature; I would not have ordinarily guessed it had been created by young people. Then again, these are obviously extraordinary young people.
Taiwan Legalizes Prostitution
Published June 25, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Yesterday, Taiwan passed legislation which would legalize prostitution on the island, overturning a law which outlawed the practice 11 years ago. Sex workers' advocacy groups cheered, and religious groups went home and listened to Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" on repeat.
Taiwan's legal change is slightly different than those made in places like New Zealand and Germany, however. Prior to the new law, prostitution was only criminal for the mostly-female sellers of sex; the male customers could not be prosecuted. While the Swedish model advocates criminalizing the buyer and not the seller, I've never heard of the reverse before. It seems both grossly unfair and counter-intuitive to hold women in prostitution, trafficked or not, criminally accountable while the men who buy them walk away without penalty. It's a law with the inevitable affect of driving up demand for sex while reducing the supply of women who will sell it. In other words, the old law was a recipe for trafficking.
The advocates behind this new law argued that making prostitution illegal 11 years ago has done little to reduce human trafficking or prostitution of minors in Taiwan, and that the industry is now controlled by unscrupulous gangsters. But will legalizing prostitution now really result in these gangsters relinquishing control over their brothels? Or will it just make their thuggish enforcement and abuses of women beyond prosecution?
Detractors from the law argue that legalization hasn't reduced trafficking in Amsterdam, and that if legal reform is necessary, criminalizing the buyer and decriminalizing the seller is a better way to go than flat out legalization. If brothels are legal, law enforcement has a harder time discovering trafficked persons and minors within them.
What I fear the most will happen as a result of this legal change are the following:
- The deep imbalance of gender equality in Taiwan (as evidenced by the previous law) will manifest in violence against women in the new legal commercial sex industry.
- Taiwan's proximity to and relationship with China will make it an even bigger destination for Chinese women trafficked into prostitution.
- The new law will make it impossible for police to find the estimated 100,000 children who are forced into prostitution in Taiwan.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope that Taiwan, somehow, has found that silver bullet to end human trafficking in prostitution and to stop traffickers and buyers from preying on children. I hope this new law solves the problem. But I doubt it will.
