Anti-Slavery's topics - tribe.net

On Frontline -- May 5th, 2009

2009-05-05T23:20:53Z

As well as online:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Darwin's twin track: 'Evolution and emancipation'

2009-02-02T20:59:14Z

What drove Charles Darwin to his extraordinary ideas on evolution and human origins? Adrian Desmond, with co-author James Moore, argue in a new book that the great scientist had a "sacred cause": the abolition of slavery.

"It makes one's blood boil," said Charles Darwin.
Not much outraged the gentle recluse, but the horrors of slavery could cost him a night's sleep.

He was thinking of the whipped house boy and the thumbscrews used by old ladies in South America, atrocities he had witnessed on the Beagle voyage.

The screams stayed with him for life, but how much did they influence his life's work?

Today you can still read of Darwin's "eureka" moment when he saw the Galapagos finches.

Alas, his conversion to evolution wasn't so simple, but it was much more interesting. It didn't occur in the Galapagos, but probably on his arrival home.

And new evidence suggests that Darwin's unique approach to evolution - relating all races and species by "common descent" - could have been fostered by his anti-slavery beliefs.

Family feelings

After circumnavigating the globe (1831-6), Darwin settled in London. Here in 1838 he formulated his theory of "natural selection", after which he became increasingly reclusive, particularly following his move to Down village in Kent.

He refrained from publishing a word on evolution until 1858 - not even a brief, priority-grabbing paper, as was his way with other projects. His hesitance is understandable. Evolution was execrable to his Cambridge friends.

One naturalist called it "abominable trash vomited" out by revolutionaries; and radicals did, indeed, deploy a self-sustaining evolution to undermine the creationist miracles on which Anglican power rested.

Darwin's gouty Cambridge professor, Adam Sedgwick, used "contempt, scorn, and ridicule" to trash one "filthy" evolution book in 1844. Darwin, sensitive about his reputation, wisely laid low.

So why devise such a beastly theory in the first place, if it threatened ignominy? Was there some integral moral gain?

Consider another question. Why was Darwin's evolution uniquely defined by common descent, the joining of races and species through shared ancestry? Darwin's common descent image is so obvious today that we forget to question where it came from.

'Man and brother'

Common descent in Darwin's younger day was ubiquitous in anti-slavery tracts. Consider the words of the famous cameo, depicting a kneeling slave asking "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" That cameo was in fact the brainchild of the pottery-dynasty founder, Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin's grandfather.

New evidence shows how indebted Darwin was to this anti-slavery heritage.

Darwin's uncle Jos Wedgwood sold the firm's London showroom, and ploughed the proceeds into an anti-slavery society, and in the 1850s (with American slavery still flourishing) the Wedgwoods continued using labels showing the slave under Britannia's banner, which read "God Hath Made of One Blood All Nations of Men".

The anti-slavery agitator Thomas Clarkson - the man who rode 35,000 miles collecting statistics in the sea ports on the evil trade - was another bankrolled by Josiah Wedgwood.

With a Wedgwood wife and mother, Darwin saw abolition as a "sacred cause" too, and in his culminating work, the Descent of Man (1871), he placed Clarkson at the moral apex of humanity and called slavery a "great sin".

Such family feelings explain why, as a 16-year-old at Edinburgh University in 1826 (in a period often dismissed by historians), Darwin could spend 40 extra-curricular hours with a freed slave from Guyana studying taxidermy and become his "intimate" friend.

And this when many visiting Americans saw any black/white friendship as "revolting".

Torture accounts

Darwin witnessed slavery everywhere in South America. The Beagle's own supply ship on her previous trip had originally been a slaver, and, once sold, it reverted to slaving. While Darwin was on the continent, it was again disgorging chained Africans.

Darwin's journal of the voyage (1845) gives a damning account of the tortures he saw or heard of; but of all the "heart-sickening atrocities", the worst for him were the stories of masters threatening to sell the children of disobedient slaves.

As an outsider, he was "powerless as a child even to remonstrate". But within weeks of the Beagle's return, he developed a science which undercut the slave-master's notions.

Many plantation owners considered slaves a separate species, an animal to be exploited as such. Blacks and whites shared no joint ancestry.

Yet the Darwin-Wedgwood maxim made the slave a "Man and a Brother". Darwin opened his first evolution notebook in 1837, damned slave-holders for their separate species view, then pushed common parentage to the zoological limit.

Since species were only extended races, they too must share an ancestry. He moved from talking of the common "father" of mankind to an "opossum"-like fossil as the father of all mammals.

Human genealogy became the model for his famous "tree of life".

Fossil evidence

None of this minimizes the importance of Darwin's Galapagos and Pampas observations. The giant tortoises, mockingbirds and finches varied from island to island, and this became clearer to Darwin after London Zoo's bird expert John Gould analysed his finches in January 1837.

Then Richard Owen (the man shortly to give the world the "dinosaurs") diagnosed Darwin's fossils. Darwin thought that some were "rhinos" (Old World mammals), yet Owen showed that they were indigenous giant armadillos, sloths and anteaters.

So extinct animals were being succeeded by related living types. This evidence remains crucial, but it was the way Darwin marshalled it that concerns us. Assuming the tacit truth of racial "brotherhood" allowed him to join the bloodlines into a common descent configuration.

And he did so in 1837-8, just as the West Indies slaves were being released (technically freed in 1833, they were forced to serve an "apprenticeship" which effectively kept them in bondage till 1838).

This freedom filled Darwin with a sense of pride and he declared that "we... have made a greater sacrifice, than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin". He certainly had.

All too clear

His common descent imagery was unknown elsewhere in natural history, beyond racially unifying works such as James Cowles Prichard's Researches into the Physical History of Mankind. That book traced animal races to common ancestors in order to prove that all humans could have descended from Adam.

Darwin, preparing to write the Origin of Species, scribbled inside his copy of Prichard: "How like my Book all this will be". It wasn't so. He remained a worried man and in the later 1850s dropped humans from his publishing plans because the subject was "so surrounded with prejudices".

But even though the Origin of Species (1859) skirted people, no one doubted that they remained at its core.

Darwin's "bulldog" T.H. Huxley, who took over the fight for human evolution, said that when it came to uniting black and white ancestries, he "was pleased to be able to show that Mr Darwin was for once on the side of orthodoxy".

Darwin could have wished for no more.

Adrian Desmond is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Biology Department at University College London. He is co-author with James Moore of Darwin's Sacred Cause (Allen Lane)

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7856157.stm

Published: 2009/01/29 09:42:28 GMT

© BBC MMIX

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NPR: Human Traffic report from May 15th, 2008...

2008-05-13T22:13:14Z

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=90404253

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From NPR: Author Struggles to Stay Removed from Slave Trade

2008-03-12T02:27:47Z

Heard this this afternoon -- grim listening / reading:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88102060

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Israeli human-traffickers are married men from former Soviet Union

2007-12-11T11:50:37Z

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/933393.html

Last update - 06:14 11/12/2007
Report: Most human-traffickers are from former Soviet Union
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent

Your typical Israeli human-trafficker is a 40-year-old man, originally from the Soviet Union, married, with one child, with no criminal record, and is an "asset" to the community. This is the portrait drawn by attorney Naomi Levenkorn, of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, in a ground-breaking report issued Monday: "Another shipment from Tashkent - Outline of the Israeli Trafficker in Women."

The Hotline report is based on the case files of 325 traffickers brought to trial since 1992. These include their police interrogations, verdicts that have yet to be published, interviews with police officers and victims of trafficking, as well as the testimony of traffickers and lawyers who appeared before Meretz MK Zahava Gal-On's parliamentary committee on trafficking in women.

Much has been written over the years about the women who are bought and sold for the sex industry, but this is the first time an attempt has been made to depict those who trade in them. Traffickers' backgrounds differ greatly - one was an Israeli karate champion, another the son of a Holocaust survivor - but there are common elements.

At least 70 percent were born in the former Soviet Union, and 90 percent are men. Some 10 percent of traffickers are women, 19 percent of them prostitutes. Some of the women were no less cruel than the men. Irina Fishman, for example, prevented one of her victims from sleeping for three days because she was considered tardy in carrying out her cleaning duties.

The average age of the traffickers on trial was 40, but some had got a very early start - Yaniv Azran, for example, was a soldier in compulsory service.

Nearly 70 percent were married or had a live-in partner, which did not keep them from raping their victims. Semion Doshker, for example, was tried along with his wife and lover, and it turned out that he had also raped some of the women he trafficked. In more than one instance, the rape was presented in the court's minutes as "an admissions test" or "vetting the merchandise."

A breakdown of the data shows that 42 percent of those in the trade have one child, and 28 percent have two children. Some of the children were partners in the "business."

Almost half of the traffickers had no prior criminal record. The list includes the owner of a candy store in the Opera House building in South Tel Aviv, a taxi driver, an employee in the food industry, an instructor at a fitness center, an ice-cream truck driver, and the owner of a furniture store. Nine traffickers had served in the Israel Defense Forces, and three of them had been recognized as disabled veterans.

The report also looked into how traffickers spent their leisure time. One of them, who was charged with beating women with a whip and stick, had volunteered with the police and was involved in raising a pet iguana. Another made contributions to a staff party for the prison wardens association, a Hanukkah ball at the French immigrants society and a gala dance for the parents of the school at Kibbutz Deganya

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The Ether

2007-10-26T15:26:29Z

http://tribes.tribe.net/2crossroadsofreligion2/thread/7500e88a-3c12-4536-82bc-656a71ef95a3

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Indian Gov. Restricts Women From Migrating....

2007-06-27T18:48:29Z

Indian Government restricts women from migrating for domestic work

29 May 2007

In a worrying move, the Indian Government announced plans to prohibit women under 30 from migrating to work as domestics in an effort to tackle trafficking for sexual exploitation.

The ban will apply to women seeking domestic work in 17 countries in Africa, the Gulf and Southeast Asia. Minister for Women and Children Renuka Chowdhury earlier this month said the ban was in response to repeated cases of migrant domestic workers in these countries being sexually exploited.

Trafficking women into domestic work is a significant problem. They are promised good work and pay which they cannot find at home, but on their arrival they are forced to work long hours, often up to seven days a week without holidays for little or no pay. They have to carry out all of the household chores, have no privacy and their employers keep their passports to prevent them from leaving.

Rather than tackling trafficking and providing protection from exploitation, this measure will only penalise the women concerned. By not addressing the poverty and lack of opportunity that pushes women to look for work abroad and removing legitimate means for them to migrate for work as domestics, they will become even more vulnerable to traffickers. It is vital the Indian Government takes effective steps to penalise traffickers and not the people who are vulnerable to this abuse.

www.anti-slavery.org

I'm new to this tribe and don't know if something about this has previously been posted but I thought
i'd give it a shoot.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Juneteenth

2007-06-26T23:25:40Z

Most Americans have never heard of it, but "Juneteenth" is a celebration which marks the late arrival of the news of freedom in various rural African-American communities in mid-june of 1865, over two years after the official date specified in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and two months after the formal surrender at Appomattox Court House. Like Bastille Day, a French holiday which marks the storming of a prison, Juneteenth provides an interesting contrast to the jingoism which has largely destroyed the Fourth of July in modern Amerika.

I think I first read about Juneteenth in my early twenties as I spent two months reading everything I could one summer before I taught fifth grade in New Orleans. One paragraph in particular I recall was the observation that "while the white people celebrated guns, we mostly celebrated each other." What a beautiful day! It is also the title of a novel by the brilliant Ralph Ellison, published posthumously in 1999. As we prepare for the latest coca-colonized pepsi paeans to freedom, I encourage all good people of good will to meditate on freedom and to honor Juneteenth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth
http://politicalsapphire.blogspot.com/2005/07/bittersweet-fourth-of-july.html
http://exb-louderthanwords.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!48DE7B74C6C950D8!120.entry
http://quintessentialnegro.blogspot.com/2005/07/jouvert-thats-joo-vay-great.html
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/030253
http://www.juneteenth.com

posted in Anti-Slavery - 3 replies

China Brick Factory Slavery

2007-06-18T22:48:55Z

Just a few links and something to watch.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/06/08/slave_labor_found_at_china_brick_factory/3300/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070615/ts_afp/chinaslaverychildren
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003751147_slaves17.html

This is part of why the union movement used to push so hard for "buy American" and "buy union." Who realistically thinks that anyone in China is able to police this, or has much incentive to do so? America's plantations have just been off-shored...

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Annual State Department Survey, 200+ Pages

2007-06-13T21:00:48Z

Allies Cited for Human Trafficking
State Dept. Adds Arab Nations to List of Worst Offenders
By Nora Boustany, Washington Post Foreign Service, Wednesday, June 13, 2007; Page A14

The State Department yesterday added seven countries, including four Arab allies, to its list of worst offenders in failing to suppress human trafficking and forced labor, which it called "a modern day form of slavery."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/12/AR2007061202180.html

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

SAVE SUZANNE AND MANY OTHER INNOCENTS !!!

2007-03-12T00:51:47Z

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILIES, COWORKERS, ANYONE WHO YOU CAN THINK OF !!!

PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD IN ORDER TO SAVE SUZANNE ( AND MANY OTHER INNOCENTS ) AND TO STOP THE WAR RIGHT NOW !!!

this was shared by the mother of Suzanne
http://tribes.tribe.net/freesuzanne/thread/2d5f4113-f531-40a1-b160-fc7831802fb1

.............................................................................

A friend of mine wrote this today:
Suzanne's Summary Court Martial tomorrow 12-13-06

This is what is happened:

There was a girl who was in the Army.

She was stationed in Iraq as a Security Policeman.

She was raped repeatedly by her superior officer in the US Army.

He told her either she could sleep with him or he would put
her on the most dangerous duty of all and may end up dead.

She valued her life and chose the lesser of two evils.

When she returned to her base in the states she tried to
tell people what happened and they made fun of her and
called her a liar.

They said: You brought this on yourself. You have no
proof.

She tried to use her chain of command but the chain
was broken and no one would listen to her.

At her new base in Fort Lewis, Washington, word had
gotten around that this girl could be taken advantage of.

When she asked her new boss where she should report,
he said: In my bed. Naked.

When she reported this to her chain of command,
she was ignored again.

Then they told her: Pack your bags. You're going back to
Iraq.

She packed her bags but did not show up for her deployment.

She was about to walk out the door but she couldn't do it.

She was afraid so she said: Mom I can't go back there.
I don't want to be raped again.

She waited for a few days at home and the Army came to arrest her.

She was Absent Without Leave (AWOL). She chose to go
AWOL because she was afraid of being raped again by her boss.

They detained her at Fort Lewis.

Her baggage went ahead to Iraq.

A big suitcase that included her baby blanket arrived in Bagdhad.
When some soldiers found out it was hers they rifled through the
contents and threw her baby blanket in a trash heap.

They said Suzanne was guilty of missing a movement and going
AWOL.

Suzanne said: But this is what happened to me and I don't want to
go back.

Then they asked some of the guys: Did you rape her?

And the guys said: No.

There was no trial.

Only a questioning where it was her word against theirs.

Rep. DeFazio (D-Oregon) said he would open a Congressional
Investigation. But this never happened.

Suzanne started to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) which happens after you've survived a battle or a sexual
assault or a natural disaster.

PTSD makes you really depressed. Most of the times you want
to kill yourself.

When you aren't depressed, you are numb with alchohol or drugs.

I know this because I was sexually assaulted when I was
in the military too.

That happened a long time ago.

When I was first attacked I didn't speak up.

And then the man went and raped another girl.

It took me years of therapy to deal with the emotional
pain of not speaking up and of being attacked.

Unfortunately, no one talks about sexual assault in the military
because very few victims actually speak up.

This is what is happening:

Suzanne is speaking up.

She is saying: I was raped by this man, can someone please help?

The Army says it didn't happen because they asked the guys and the
guys said: We didn't do it.

The Army is offering her a Summary Court Martial today.

This means that Suzanne can be sent back to Iraq. It also means
she will be in confinement for 30 days.

Today they are packing her belongings and will not tell her where she is going.

The Army is making an example of Suzanne.

The Army is saying if you go AWOL, you will be punished.

The Army is saying: the needs of the military always come first, including
the sexual needs of some of our commanders.

They are also saying, if you rape someone in America's Army,
we will protect you.

If you join the Army, you will have permission to rape
women and then return to society.

Suzanne needs our help.

Suzanne needs an Honorable Discharge and intense therapy just to survive.

Ask yourself: Could go on doing your job if all this had happened to you?

Ask yourself: If this happened to my daughter or son would I find the way the
government is handling this, acceptable?

Please Call your News Stations, Newspapers, Congresspeople and Senators today.
Just one call could make a huge difference for Suzanne.

Their info is here:

www.congress.org

Info about Suzanne is at:

www.suzanneswift.org

Thank you.

April Fitzsimmons
USAF Veteran (1985-1989)
true2selph@aol.com

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Life as a Thai sex worker...

2007-02-23T06:05:55Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6360603.stm

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

BLUEPRINT FOR A PRISON PLANET

2007-02-14T21:54:51Z

http://www.nick2211.yage.net/chips.htm

Hmm.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Justice for Children -- Join, and become an Abolitionist: Help rid the planet of child sex slavery!!

2007-01-27T23:52:27Z

Justice for Children International works toward the abolition of child sex trafficking and exploitation through aftercare, prevention and advocacy.

I found this site today and joined immediately.

http://www.jfci.org

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Sex slaves are often the girls next door

2006-09-29T23:04:27Z

There was a huge shakedown on sex slave brothels last week and this article is a follow-up that reviews the current state of slavery in the US.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13415620/

> Aug. 20, 2006

> NEW YORK - Raids conducted last week on 20 Northeast brothels uncovered more than 70 suspected sex slaves, exposing a long-ignored national problem found in towns large and small, with immigrants and U.S. citizens alike as victims, experts say.

... etc

I had missed the original article. This was a breakup of a huge chain of brothels run by a Korean couple that enslaved women throughout the entire eastern US:

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060817/NEWS03/60817013/1188

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Seeking Socially Conscious Managers and Marketing Pros for Producer/Director

2006-09-10T18:30:06Z

Contact me as I know a very socially conscious movie and music video director who seeks:
1) A Personal Manager
2) A Business Manager

(two separate persons sought)

We prefer someone who is socially conscious, anti-war, etc. Must have experience in one (or several) of the following:

Entertainment Production
Video/Film
Accounting/Bookkeeping
Law
Marketing
Personal Management
Project Management
Technology
Promotions

Would prefer someone that lives in New York City (or in the Tri-State area).

Now we already have some interest from "non conscious managers" but would truly prefer to have peope onboard that have a
socially-conscious focus.

NOTE: We are also looking for persons who live in other states, to market our director to local writers, bands, etc. These marketers will have titles of: Regional Marketing Directors (for the specific geographic location that they represent).

Email us at: DumbGeniuz@GigaGroove.com to learn more. Kindly put: Interested Conscious Person For Director

If you know an associate who is socially conscious who may fit the bill, kindly forward this message to them (copy/paste it).

Thanks and in the words of John Lennon: "All we are saying, is give PEACE a chance."

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

SLAVERY IN WESTER JAILS: Of course prisoners should repay society but not be ENSLAVED

2006-08-28T23:36:01Z

I am all for making a person pay a debt to society and do jail time, if they've done a crime. However, having prisoners make a few cents for their work is CRIMINAL. It's taking advantage of those that we should be re-educating and preparing for return to their communities.

Further, the fact that jail phone calls cost grotesque amounts of money is surely CRIMINAL.

Thus, we can tell how honest and loving a civilization is by how they treat the homeless, jailbirds, minorities, women, children, elderly!!!

As we work to end slavery of other forms, let's not forget our brothers & sisters in jail who are also beaten, shanked, etc, while being supposedly rehabilitated using our TAX DOLLARS!!!

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

NPR Story on Sex Trade in Cambodia

2006-07-25T21:56:32Z

A transcript of the report can be found here: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/05/26/PM200605265.html

It's the second part of a series.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 12 replies

PROTEST & REVOLT

2006-05-25T02:16:59Z

http://www.protest.net/

Current events link. Key word NETWORK.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Frontline on sex slavery...

2006-05-23T00:35:52Z

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/

"An undercover journey deep into the world of sex trafficking, following one man determined to rescue his wife -- kidnapped and sold into the global sex trade."

posted in Anti-Slavery - 6 replies

Freetheslaves.net

2006-05-20T01:36:41Z

I've just discovered this tribe. My name is Kevin Bales, I am the president of Free the Slaves, the American sister-organization of Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest and original human rights group. We are based in Washington DC and have on-the-ground projects for liberation and rehabiliation in India, Nepal, Ghana and Haiti.

I was happy to see some of my work quoted in the introduction to this tribe, and would like to invite you to visit freetheslaves.net. We have new award-winning films about slavery in America, how slaves free themselves in India, and copies of the Emmy and Peabody award winning film "Slavery: A Global Investigation". This is the film that exposed slavery in chocolate and it was based on my book, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. There are also lots of materials that you can download as pdf files - a teaching pack on modern slavery, research reports, plans and ideas for anti-slavery events, and more.

Two of our workers are in India just now, check out Jacob Patton's blog of his first encounter with people in slavery.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 5 replies

Historical struggle

2006-05-04T22:44:01Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tyne/roots/2003/10/solidarityontyne.shtml

This is my first post on this tribe. I just found it today and it looks very interesting. I wasnt sure of the best way to share this link so decided on this thread. I found it interesting and hope others do as well.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Please help

2006-04-14T00:35:14Z

please go to this website to send a fax to the related US
congress and senate members to Request a Congressional Hearing on the
Sujiatun case. it's a very easy to Fill out form, With just a click, the fax will be sent.
thank you,
joshua

here is the link:
http://publicpetition.unvcc.com/UN/index.php

there is more information about Sujiatun on the website:
http://www.theepochtimes.com/211,111,,1.html

posted in Anti-Slavery - 2 replies

Slave Labor and Torture in China - story

2006-03-03T20:51:15Z

this is a story story from a girl who was sent to a forced labor camp in China for practicing Falun Dafa (or Falun Gong). (Falun Dafa is a spiritual practice that teaches Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance and is being persecuted in China.)

Tears and Blood in Laodongyue Detention Center, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province

(Clearwisdom.net)

1. Beijing

I am a female practitioner. On July 19, 2001, I went to Beijing to appeal, to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. A 20-year-old male practitioner Xiao Miao went with me.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon of July 20,we unfurled a banner with the words "Stop Persecuting Falun Gong" near the People's Monument in Tiananmen Square. We were immediately arrested by the plainclothes police and shoved into a police van parked in the Square. Since July 20 is a sensitive date, there were 14 or 15 police vehicles of different sizes parked in the Square, ready to arrest practitioners. (The persecution of Falun Dafa started on July 20, 1999.) We were cursed at in the van by the police.

At the Tiananmen Police Station, a policeman beat both Xiao Miao and myself. I was slapped in the face, but Xiao Miao endured much more. I felt dizzy under the beating and soon lost consciousness. When I came to, I heard the sound of slaps. It turned out that Xiao Miao was taking the beating for me. The policeman beat him many times. He even took Xiao Miao to another room for the beating. All I could hear is the sound of heavy punches. When he returned, Xiao Miao didn't say anything. He only smiled. I knew he didn't want me to feel sad, but he was covered with dirt. On that day, all the male practitioners were severely beaten. I don't know the whereabouts of Xiao Miao now.

About ten practitioners were arrested that day. Most of them were from the northern part of China. They were sent to different counties in Beijing. An old lady and I were sent to Tongzhou Police Department in Beijing. The old lady was put under detention for an hour while I was held for the interrogation. Two days later, they found out my name through deceptive methods and sent me back to Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. I thought they would release me as they promised. On the contrary, they put me into the Laodongyue Detention Center of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang province.

2. Hangzhou

The umbrella with the Tiantang Brand name [Tiantang means Heaven or Paradise in Chinese.] produced in Hangzhou is of very good quality and one of the most famous. Each stitch on every umbrella, however, is soaked with the tears and blood of the detainees in the detention center. Those who are detained would be given a work number, whether they are convicted or not. In my first week I was forced to kneel down in the women's room to recite the regulations of the jail. The police beat me hard whenever I made a mistake in reciting.

The Housing Condition

There is a strong foul smell in the whole detention center. Twenty or thirty people were held in one cell with the toilet inside. There was only half of a divider in the cell. Those who came in first or those with some "privileges" slept on the board. The rest slept on the cement floor. It was very hot and humid in the room. Most of the female inmates only wore underwear. Some were even naked.

I met another practitioner, Gan, who also went through severe torture. The next day I was transferred from room 5 to room 6. Then the real torment started.

Slavery

There are two sayings in the Laodongyue Detention Center. "Human life is worthless. The umbrella is valuable." "There is nothing in the eyes of the supervisors except the umbrella."

In each room there was a "head," directly supported by the supervising guards. Their task was to oversee production. They have permission to use any method to guarantee the quantity and quality of the umbrella. Therefore, they adopted hard physical punishment and verbal abuse to motivate the detainees. The guards would just pretend to not see anything.

When going through the body search in the detention center, one had to get rid of the zipper in the pants and the metal brace in the bra. In the cells, however, there was thread, needles, scissors, and other tools. A detainee couldn't bear the hard labor and hung herself in the yard at night. In Room 6 where I was held, a detainee tried to commit suicide by swallowing a pair of scissors. She didn't die of the scissors but was beaten half to death by other detainees, for nobody in the cell was allowed to write letters, meet their families, or buy anything due to the incident.

We had to make umbrellas from morning until night, not even having a chance to use the toilet. At lunch, we had to swallow the food quickly and go back to work. In order to make the newcomers work fast, they beat them ruthlessly. At the beginning, for half a day I could only make one umbrella, so I got a lot of beatings. Later I could make more than ten umbrellas, but each person was required to make 30 to 40 everyday, sometimes even 60 to 70, or 80. Without two or three months of training, no one could make 40 umbrellas in a day. We kept on working like crazy. People came to collect the umbrellas at a certain time each day. If one couldn't finish the work, she would be beaten, sworn at, exposed in the scorching sun, forced to kneel down on the basket made of wood branches or bamboo, or on the top part of an umbrella. The last one is the most severe of all punishments. (It is the plastic top of an umbrella, like a wooden bolt. Later it was made of metal.) People who knelt down on it usually got the leg bone exposed and the trademark imprinted on the knee for months. When kneeling down on the basket, blood and pus would come out, and big blisters appeared. At night, we sewed beads together under the dim light to make a special umbrella. Anyone who got sleepy would be applied some toothpaste on the face as a refreshment. The "head" Wang Youzhen would find an excuse to punish people anytime she liked. She just couldn't bear seeing us happy. If we smiled a little, she would severely punish us. They beat me and tortured me in the yard. Some inmates cried secretly in the cell.

I told the guards and other officers about the physical punishments. A policewoman named Li looked at my wounds and asked questions, but the situation didn't improve. On that evening, I was surrounded by a group of people and beaten up.

The Food and Water Supply

In the name of "saving water," the Detention Center of Hangzhou City only provided water at a certain time of day, around 4 or 5 o'clock in the afternoon and at midnight. The "quick hands" would take a shower during this limited period of time after they finished the work, but I had to clean the work site. I didn't even have time to use the toilet. After everything was cleaned up, it was time for supper and we were not allowed to use the toilet during that time. So from morning until noon, and from noon until the evening, I was not allowed to relieve myself. The food was very little and very poor. The breakfast was some thin porridge. We drank water directly from the tap. Sometimes I was so hungry that I wanted to eat the toothpaste .

3. Jiujiang

Later I was transferred to Majialong Forced Labor Camp in Ruichang, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi province. The police made the drug addicts "supervise" the practitioners. Most of them were the scum of society. Everyday, they reported their "work" to the guards. The atmosphere was depressing. The mental torture was unconceivable and indescribable. The practitioners were forced to watch videos smearing Falun Gong and study similar materials. The police adopted both soft and hard ways, deceiving and insulting practitioners. They treated good people as insane. All the families of practitioners that came to visit were required to curse Falun Gong and the Teacher.

A police guard put handcuffs on a female practitioner named Yang Dongzhi, who was in her 50's. They forced her to stand spread-eagled and handcuffed her hands and feet to two bunk beds placed on top of each other. Her hands were cuffed to the upper berth of the two beds and her feet to the lower berth. The one who gave the orders for such torture was a policewoman named Luo. She was only 25 years old. The drug addict on duty had a soft heart and moved the two beds closer together. Luo found it out and immediately ordered the beds be moved as far from each other as possible. The drug addicts who witnessed it said, "Aunt Dongzhi is about Luo's mother's age, and she has never done anything bad in her life. She just practices Falun Gong, yet she has been hanging that way for three days and two nights without a break with no food and no sleep. That policewoman is really cruel-hearted."

Posting date: 3/10/2002

posted in Anti-Slavery - 2 replies

McDonalds complicit in Ag Slavery?

2006-02-03T03:37:42Z

http://www.alternet.org/wiretap/31098/

Exactly 50 years ago this weekend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. answered a startling phone call from Minneapolis Tribune journalist Carl T. Rowan. Rowan had come across a wire report that the Montgomery bus boycott -- then entering its sixth week -- had been resolved by city officials and local black ministers.

The announcement would, of course, prove to be a fabrication of local authorities, and the boycott would endure another 11 months, resulting in the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Alabama's bus segregation laws.

Today -- in the face of a recent revelation that McDonald's appears to buy its tomatoes through at least one convicted slaver -- the fast food giant has resorted to a similarly shameful tactic: taking token measures to avoid confronting the severe human rights abuses that may be hidden within its supply chain.

Since 1997, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) -- a community group from Southern Florida representing thousands of farmworkers -- has uncovered, investigated and helped to prosecute six separate slavery cases. In 2003, three CIW members were awarded the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for their work in liberating over 1,100 individuals involuntarily held in agricultural work camps along the East Coast.

Last November, CIW called upon McDonald's to partner with them in confronting the violence and subpoverty wages of modern-day farm labor. McDonald's complicity in farmworker misery is not only emblematic of the industry as a whole, but its substantial clout as a fast-food monolith qualifies it as an apt candidate for working to end the extreme injustice.

Farm labor contractor Abel Cuello is just one of the slavers brought to justice by the CIW. In 1999, he was sentenced to only 33 months in prison for enslaving 27 people in trailers on his property. Due to a loophole in Florida law, a contractor is entitled to return to work just five years after being convicted for violating worker-protection laws. Accordingly, in October, Cuello legally returned to the fields.

In his contractor license application dated Oct. 8, 2004, Cuello stated that his job is to "recruit, supervise, [and] transport farm workers for Ag-Mart Farms." Although Ag-Mart claimed that Cuello has been banned from the company's premises, it employs E&B Harvesting and Trucking Inc., the company that Cuello launched just months after release from prison, and that his wife, Yolanda, presently serves as the sole owner.

Gregory Schell, an attorney with the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Lake Worth, Fla., who has spoken with scores of Ag-Mart farmworkers, insists that Cuello -- and not Yolanda -- works as E&B Harvesting's crew boss for Ag-Mart. "His wife has never been seen in the fields by the crew. He [Cuello] runs the operation," Schell said.

So who buys tomatoes from a man convicted of human enslavement? The answer seems to lie beneath the Golden Arches.

J.M. Procacci, chief operating officer of the company that owns Ag-Mart, told the New York Times last year that nationwide sales of grape tomatoes had increased by 25 percent since 2003, and that specifically "he attributes a significant part of the gain to McDonald's."

Yet, McDonald's -- despite the fact that last year Ag-Mart received notice of 457 pesticide violations from North Carolina and Florida agricultural officials (along with fines totaling $294,500) and was subject to state investigations after severe birth defects were found in three babies born to its farmworkers -- continues to buy tomatoes through Ag-Mart. Even the notoriously anti-labor Wal-Mart has reacted by terminating its tomato purchases from Ag-Mart.

But the point isn't that McDonald's should discontinue buying from Ag-Mart; the industry on the whole is similarly terrible. While slavery is the extreme of labor abuses in agriculture, sweatshop conditions are the norm. Farmworkers must pick two tons of tomatoes -- literally 4,000 pounds -- to earn just $50 in a day. They regularly work 10- to 12-hour days with no overtime pay, no right to organize, no sick days and no benefits whatsoever.

McDonald's could use its market power to work with farmworkers in ensuring fair and humane working conditions in the fields. Instead, it has thrown its support behind an initiative controlled by growers called Socially Accountable Farm Employers, deceptively abbreviated "SAFE."

Just as Montgomery city officials bluffed a resolution to bus segregation (due to the subsequent boycott) on Jan. 21, 1956, so too in 2006 has McDonald's sidestepped the appearance of a convicted slaver in their supply chain by proclaiming allegiance to SAFE.

Furthermore, a number of curious coincidences have led many to rightfully question McDonald's very involvement in the creation of SAFE.

First, SAFE hired CBR Public Relations to handle its media work -- a company that not only lists McDonald's as one of its major clients and garnered McDonald's nationally coveted Best Bets award in 2001 for excellence in press work, but also lists "activist response management" among its areas of expertise.

Second, SAFE has hired the auditing company Intertek to verify its companies' certification, interestingly the same firm already used by McDonald's for its own monitoring.

Third, according to SAFE spokesperson Ray Gilmer, of all the businesses that purchase tomatoes from Florida -- among them supermarkets and sit-down and fast-food restaurants -- McDonald's remains the lone company to publicly support the SAFE initiative.

Regardless of whether McDonald's worked to covertly concoct SAFE, its existence (as in the case of the false settlement in Montgomery) nonetheless enables the company to evade truly rectifying the grave realities demanding resolution -- the intolerably cruel system of farm labor that sustains its profit-making. It's an evasion tactic that failed in apartheid Alabama 50 years ago and will fail today.

If semi-centennials are honored with gold, then on the anniversary of the historic Montgomery bus boycott -- and white supremacist Southern officials' inability to suppress it -- it is incumbent upon the Golden Arches to embrace this golden opportunity to work with the CIW in abolishing the industry's horrific exploitation of farmworkers.

For more information please visit the website of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers.

Katie Shepherd and Jordan Buckley are members of the Student/Farmworker Alliance in Austin, Texas.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

slavery in kuwait maybe a problem

2006-01-02T19:38:23Z

or maybe not.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/kuwait_human_trafficking

"Annu, an Asian house maid, says she worked 19-hour days for a year and was paid nothing.

Her eyes well up with tears as she slaps her hand, demonstrating what her employers did when she reached out for food when it was not lunchtime — the only meal they gave her. When she could no longer stand the treatment, Annu fled for help to the embassy of her homeland.

The gaunt 38-year-old, her black hair gathered at the back of her head in a plastic clip, said she did not want to leave this tiny oil-rich country and hoped to find a new employer. Her three children back home need the money.

An average of 15 maids seek refuge at the embassy everyday, said a diplomat there, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition that he and his nation not be identified for fear of angering Kuwait.

About 166 maids currently were living in the embassy awaiting the outcome of mediation with their employers, compensation for rape or air tickets home.

Despite the terrible conditions under which many Asians work and live, large numbers want to stay in Kuwait because their chances of finding work that pays a decent wage at home are virtually nil."

I mentioned once before that I had interviewed Bangladeshi slaves in Micronesia and they said that they preferred their life to what they had at home, which was a life of oppression, destitute poverty and starvation.

So what of consensual slavery? Where the slave would rather be a slave than return to the lousy conditions of Bangladesh or the Phillipines? Should that be OK, should we legalize slavery like some are advocating we legalize prostitution and drugs.

Slavery is defacto legal in Kuwait and Micronesia. The problem is that slaves have no legal rights. They have to go to their own embassy if possible, but that seldom helps. If you are an AMERICAN CITIZEN being held as a slave in Saudia Arabia and you contact OUR embassy and tell them you are being held as a slave, beaten and raped even, the US EMBASSY will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for you.

Maybe instead of getting rid of slavery, we should admit it exists and try to pass international standards for slaves. Such as rape and beatings are prohibited and will be severely punished, much as the UN decries child abuse. And that slaves, like 4000 years ago, only have to serve for 7 years and then they must be freed.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Slavery and the Amazon...

2005-12-10T02:48:43Z

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/2151714.stm

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Afghan carpet weavers are unpaid slaves, rights activist says

2005-12-07T01:14:12Z

This story is an old but continues on.
-------------------------------------------------

http://www.saindia.com/article/articleview/6068/1/53/

Thousands of women and girls who weave world famous Afghan carpets are treated as unpaid slaves by their male relatives, a rights activist said, calling on the government to regulate the industry.

An Afghan shopkeeper displays a carpet © AFP Shah Marai
Thousands of women and girls who weave world famous Afghan carpets are treated as unpaid slaves by their male relatives, a rights activist said, calling on the government to regulate the industry.

Most of them spend up to 18 hours a day working in poor conditions, with many becoming ill or taking drugs to relieve pain, said campaigner Nilofar Sayar, releasing the findings of a months-long survey of about 300 weavers.

The handmade carpets, made mostly in northern Afghanistan, are one of the war-ravaged country's few exports and can fetch thousands of dollars each on the international market.

"It's fortunate that carpets can provide ... annual profit in Afghanistan. But have you ever thought of who is behind producing these carpets?" Sayar said on Wednesday.

"They're the unpaid slaves of their male relatives," she told reporters.

Sayar, who works for the non-governmental group Rabia Balkhi Management of Skills Support and Improvement group, called on the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai to end the "misery of Afghan women".

They needed health clinics and schools, and limited working hours, she said.

The women and girls, some as young as 11, spend up to 18 hours at wooden looms in "dusty, dark and wet rooms," she said. Afghanistan's 2003 constitution limits the working day to eight in hours.

"They suffer from eye, leg problems. They suffer from tuberculosis," she said.

They had little access to doctors and many used opium as a painkiller. Some gave the drug to keep their children quiet while they were at work, Sayar said.

"Children ... especially among carpet weavers... are addicted to nicotine and opium (given to them) in order to be calm," she said.

Many women from the ethnic Uzbek and Turkmen minorities in warlord-dominated northern Afghanistan work in small home-based "factories" to make the country's famous carpets, known for their quality and use of natural dyes.

Uzbeks make up six percent of Afghanistan's population of about 28 million and Turkmens about 2.5 percent.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Slavery Not Just a Thing of the Past

2005-12-06T18:11:19Z

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Dec 2 (IPS) - African, Latin American or eastern European women searching for a better life in the European Union, children labouring in clothing and footwear factories in southeast Asia, young single men who lack skills and training or even the ability to read and write: these are the faces of slavery in the early 21st century.

Every year, between half a million and 700,000 women and children fall victim to human trafficking rings and are forced into sexual slavery, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), based in Geneva. Many of those who manage to escape later report that they were actually lured into this fate by friends or even relatives.

The fall of socialist governments in central and eastern Europe in the early 1990s led large numbers of women from these countries to be trapped into lives of forced prostitution in the European Union (EU). Their ranks then swelled even further as a consequence of the wars in the Balkan region between 1995 and 1999.

The IOM points to high rates of employment, large migration flows, and the effects of globalisation, including the increase in "personal services" offered on the Internet, as among the factors that have contributed to this phenomenon.

In 2004, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) organised a series of activities and events to mark the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition.

The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."

Dec. 2, the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, commemorates the date in 1949 on which the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others.

The Convention is one of the international instruments aimed at eradicating slavery, which lives on today in the form of debt bondage, forced labour among adults and children, the sexual exploitation of minors, human trafficking, and forced marriages.

Brazil, a former Portuguese colony, is a case in point. Not only was it the destination for millions of slaves shipped from the coast of West Africa by Portugal, but it is still dogged by modern-day slavery.

At a conference in the Brazilian city of Curitiba, Brazilian parish priest Ricardo Rezende, who is active on behalf of landless peasant farmers, praised a decision adopted last year by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to create an interministerial commission to combat slave labour.

But the problem persists. "The 'gatos' (cats), the name given to the labour contractors hired by the 'fazendeiros' (large landowners), target areas plagued by drought and unemployment, and offer work clearing the jungle, promising health care and good wages," said Rezende. "They even give an 'advance' to persuade the workers to leave their families."

But "the next day they are told that they can only leave the estate once they have paid off their debts: the cost of transportation to the area, the liquor they drank on the journey, their meals and the advance. They are also told that they will have to buy their working tools and food in the plantation store."

"The debts are generally not paid off because the stipulated work period comes to an end, and the men are released without receiving any pay," he added.

The workers do not escape because "they are brought to these enormous estates late at night, when they are already drunk (from the liquor they are given on the journey), they don't know the way home, they have no relatives or friends there, and they are afraid of the humiliations (or outright abuses) suffered by those who are captured trying to run away," said the priest.

Discussing early attempts to fight slavery, Portuguese Professor José Moreira da Silva of the University of Minho in northern Portugal points out that one of the obstacles to eliminating the practice in Europe or the Americas was the fact that "there is nothing in the Bible that condemns the practice."

The biggest enemies of those who fought slavery "were found among the Christians, the great majority of whom approved of slavery," says Moreira da Silva.

For centuries, the slave trade was a source of inexhaustible wealth for Portugal. In the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, it was based on the direct capture of Africans in coastal regions, and on exchanges of Muslim prisoners of war seized by the Portuguese for African slaves from the interior provided by rival Arab chieftains.

The most valuable slaves were sent to Brazil. The rest of those who had been captured were quickly bought up by loyal British, French and Dutch clients, who either had the human "merchandise" delivered to their colonies or picked the slaves up from the Portuguese islands of Cape Verde and Sao Tomé and Príncipe, the biggest slave markets of that era.

Between 1580 and 1640, Spain and Portugal formed part of the same kingdom, and the trasnsatlantic slave trade was dominated by the Portuguese.

A January 2002 essay by Portuguese writer Manuel L. Pontes, based in St. Louis, Missouri, says the slave trade was an excellent way to obtain fast and easy profits.

In the name of God, Christianity provided the Portuguese with the right to piously "save" the souls of Africans in order to destroy their lives, despite the fact that Portugal never had any reason to declare war on the people of Africa, says Pontes.

The writer recalls that in the 16th century, Lisbon had a monopoly on trade based on the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), which divided the world outside of Europe between Spain and Portugal. He also points out that the pope gave his blessing to the trade in slaves from West Africa, who began to be shipped to Europe itself before they were sent to Brazil.

In 1444, a Portuguese ship delivered 235 African slaves to a port in the southern Portuguese region of Algarve - the start of a trade that would last more than three centuries.

Pontes points out that although slavery was not new in Europe, since it had already existed for centuries, the Treaty of Tordesillas gave it a whole new dimension in Portugal.

After1444, half a century before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, the capture of slaves in Africa had become so barbaric and inhumane that the countries involved themselves were forced to take measures to make the practice more humane, says Pontes.

The trade in human beings gradually became more organised, with the acceptance, support and protection of the kingdoms involved. At the same time, Portugal began to feel the competition of slave traders from France, Britain and the Netherlands, due to the discovery of new lands that had expanded their empires, which drove up the demand for more slaves.

Lisbon, however, continued to have a corner on a large part of the trade. Even today, small Portuguese forts known as "entrepostos" pay testimony to the horrors of the slave trade all along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, not only in the former Portuguese colonies.

In the entrepostos, the Africans captured or obtained in trade with the Arabs were bound together with wooden yokes fastened around their necks, with their hands tied behind their backs. Before they were shipped out, they were baptised by the bishop of Angola.

In 1550, Portuguese chronicler Cristóvão de Oliveira reported that around 10,000 people, or 10 percent of the population of Lisbon, the richest city in Europe at the time, were slaves.

As the city grew, that proportion shrank, but in absolute terms, the number of blacks and mulattos in Lisbon grew to 30,000 in the early 18th century, and continued to grow until 1761, when Portugal abolished slavery.

But while Portugal and the rest of the countries around the world abolished slavery long ago, slave labour is still found in a number of countries, in the form of bonded and forced labour and even slavery by descent, notes Anti-Slavery International, one of the world's oldest human rights organisations.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31279

posted in Anti-Slavery - 4 replies

Stop glamorizing pain - Sop glamorizing Slavery - Stop glamorizing pimps

2005-12-05T18:17:02Z

Why are pimps glamorized?
I don't get it and don't want to get it. How boring all that glitter.
----------------------------

Mary Mitchell
'Players Ball' in Maywood an offensive, ironic insult

December 4, 2005

BY MARY MITCHELL SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
Advertisement

If you are still confused about why The Bishop Don Magic Juan isn't funny, you need to hear what a former prostitute had to say Saturday night, as alleged pimps were preparing to converge on Maywood. "I've been shot five times and stabbed numerous times," Brenda M. told a crowd of protesters who had gathered in Maywood's village hall two hours before the planned "Players Ball" was scheduled to begin.

"We don't start into this type of lifestyle at an old age. We start at 14 and 13 years old," she said. "If we allow stuff like this to continue and go on in our community it gives out messages to our young that it is cool."

Although it was frigid outside, and residents had learned only a day before that the "celebrity pimp" would be holding his birthday party and the 30th anniversary celebration of his Players Ball at Mariella's Banquet Hall on 5th Avenue in Maywood, it was standing-room-only in the village hall.

'It's a ball for child molesters'

In response to the fallout from the community, the Maywood Police Department set up barricades to keep protesters from blocking the facility, which is across the street from the Maywood Police Department and the village hall.

Consider that. Isn't it as ironic as it is insulting that people who call themselves pimps and prostitutes chose to hold a celebration right under the noses of law enforcement?

That irony was not lost on Tina F., also a survivor of prostitution and a street outreach coordinator for the Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project. She also spoke at the protest rally.

Polaris Project is an anti-human trafficking organization.

"I was trafficked here in Chicago at the age of 14," she said. "The [Players Ball] is not something that started up a year ago; this has been going on 30 years in Chicago. We have let this go on.

"What is this all about? Well, it's a ball for child molesters. It's a ball for rapists, because that's what pimps do. They rape you in. They beat you in and they have minors. Most of the people who are in the sex industry under pimp control prostitution are under 18. They are under 14. They start as young as 12 years old through manipulation and force, and through parents selling to pimps for drugs.

"I don't care what you heard: 'Oh it's not really pimps that attend this party.' That's the glamorization of the media. Pimps have the greatest-ever media and the glamorization of what is going on. Someone's child is going to be there who doesn't want to be there and is forced to smile."

And if you check out Juan's Web site, there's an insightful picture of a young woman. Despite the hype surrounding the Players Ball, she looked miserable.

Although rappers like 50 Cent, Ice-T and Snoop Dogg have made pimping appear to be cool, women like Brenda M. and Tina F. put the affair into perspective. Still, it takes a lot of gall for lawbreakers to flaunt their lawless lifestyle in the faces of police officers.

According to the owners of Mariella's, off-duty Chicago police officers would be among those providing security for the ball.

The owners, who converted a controversial pool hall into a banquet facility, were holed up inside their establishment while protesters waved their signs saying "Pimps Stay Away" from across the street.

The Chicago Police Department's policy allows police officers to provide security as long as alcohol is not the primary retail of the establishment, according to a spokesman for the department.

When I finally got inside Mariella's to talk to the son of one of the owners, tables were still being set up for the event. Premium liquors lined the bar and a surly security guard stood guard at the door.

A man who identified himself as the son of the owner, Tony Sanchez, claimed the owners had no idea the birthday party was also a celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Players Ball.

"We had no idea this was going to happen," said Antonio, who declined to give his last name. "We found out about the [Players Ball] two or three days ago. We didn't know what this guy was about. We didn't want any problems, but this is a contract and we are stuck between a rock and a hard place."

'Stop glamorizing pain'

According to Tina F., the Players Ball was shut down in Minneapolis and Atlanta after police officers infiltrated the party and videotaped pimps bragging about how much money they pulled from prostitutes working the streets.

"Two years ago in Atlanta, they stopped it and arrested 15 pimps and charged them. One pimp had a 10-year-old girl in his stable," she said.

Does that sound glamorous?

I can only echo what Brenda F. so eloquently said of why the Players Ball needs to be shut down in the black community -- despite the lime-green suits and flashy jewelry, vintage cars and the attention of rappers like Snoop Dogg and Ice-T.

The celebration of human trafficking should be offensive, especially to people whose ancestors were trafficked all over the world.

"Stop glamorizing pain," Brenda said. "Stop glamorizing abuse. Stop glamorizing the slavery of women."

http://www.suntimes.com/output/mitchell/cst-nws-mitch04s1.html

posted in Anti-Slavery - 2 replies

Houston sex slave trafficers get bail hearing

2005-11-27T04:26:13Z

Sex slavery is big in Houston which, like most big US cities, has a flourishing human slave market, driven by demand from the urges of everyone's friends and neighbors who secretly make use of slaves for their own purposes when they think no one is looking.

Arresting the trafficers is a necessary part of stopping the slave trafficing, but maybe we should start identifying the people who are willing to pay big bucks in order to abuse slaves for their own sick entertainment.

---
http://www.click2houston.com/news/5401564/detail.html

Alleged Sex Trafficking Ring Members Denied Bail

November 25, 2005

HOUSTON -- A judge has denied bail for six people who allegedly ran a sex trafficking ring, including one woman who authorities said performed forced abortions on illegal immigrants to keep them working as prostitutes in Houston bars.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Smith denied bail Tuesday for Lorenza "Comadre" Abdulia Reyes Nunez, who allegedly terminated women's pregnancies by force and, in one instance, threw a still-living aborted fetus into the trash.

"We've talked to numerous females who had forced abortions," Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Lina Castillo testified this week. She said Reyes Nunez charged ring members $300 for each abortion performed on the women, who had been promised jobs as waitresses but were forced into work such as prostitution to pay off smuggling debts as high as $13,000.

Eight people were charged last week in connection with an alleged conspiracy to smuggle Central and South American women and girls, including minors, into the United States, forcing them to work in bars and as prostitutes, authorities said.

Arrested Nov. 13 were Reyes Nunez, Maximino Mondragon, 57; Victor Omar Lopez, 38; Oscar Mondragon, 47; Walter Alexander Corea, 39; Kerin Josue Silva, 19; Olga Mondragon, 45; and Maria Fuentes, 35. Authorities said that approximately 100 Central and South American women were taken into custody during the sweep and were being held in connection with various immigration issues.

All eight defendants are charged with conspiring to recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide and obtain by any means young Central and South American women and girls, and benefit from participation in the venture with the knowledge that the victims would be forced to engage in commercial sex acts.

A charge of conspiracy carries a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment, and a $250,000 fine.

Smith set bail Tuesday at $50,000 for Silva, 19, who is the son of alleged ringleader Corea.

The judge set bail at $100,000 for Mondragon, who operates El Huetamo Nite Club, also known as the La Leona Club, in Houston.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 5 replies

Tonights Leno show discusses human sex slave issue

2005-11-26T03:13:28Z

Those not on the East Coast still have time to see it if they wish.

Leno interviews Dr. Phil, who has taken a personal interest in the case of Natalee Holloway, the Alabama college girl who disappeared last spring on a trip in Aruba. Phil says he has reason to believe that she is still alive and is being held as a sex slave in an unknown part of the world, but not Aruba. From the context it sounded like she had been in Mexico at some point. Phil discusses how his operatives were nearly killed by sex trafficers in Mexico when they got too close to the truth.

It's good to see these things being discussed on shows with such a large audience and I hope that we hear more and hopefully she will be found.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 5 replies

Many groups fighting slavery; not everyone satisfied

2005-11-02T01:42:01Z

Groups Target Human Trafficking in U.S.

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/trafficking_in_america

Sat Oct 29, 2:40 PM ET

LOS ANGELES - Florencia Molina's personal hellhole was a dressmaking shop on the outskirts of Los Angeles. She worked there up to 17 hours a day, seven days a week, and lived there, too, without the option of showering or washing her clothes.

Other victims of American-style human trafficking have had very different venues for ordeals just as bad or worse — brothels in San Francisco, bars in New Jersey, slave-labor farm camps in Florida, a small-town tree-cutting business owned by a New Hampshire couple.

Trafficking is a stubborn problem and a staggering one worldwide, affecting an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 victims a year. Federal officials say 14,500 to 17,500 of them are trafficked to the United States, where the myriad forms of modern-day slavery present an elusive target for those trying to eradicate it.

Victims have come from at least 50 countries in almost every part of the world and are trafficked to virtually every state — to clandestine factories, restaurants, farms, massage parlors, even private homes where women and girls are kept in servitude.

"Human trafficking is so hidden you don't know who you're fighting — the victims are so scared, they're not going to tell you what's happening to them," said Given Kachepa, himself a former victim of a scam which exploited Zambian orphans touring the United States in a boys' choir.

Aligned against the traffickers is an array of federal, state and local government agencies, teamed up with an odd coalition of private groups that include Christian conservatives and left-of-center immigrant-rights advocates. The result is perhaps the most far-reaching anti-trafficking campaign of any nation, yet some victim support groups are questioning its effectiveness.

They contend that federal criteria offering assistance to victims only if they help prosecute their traffickers deters some from seeking help. Others say the government has placed too much emphasis on sex trafficking and too little on workplace abuses at sweatshops, farms and elsewhere.

"We see sex cases being prioritized (by federal prosecutors), but other cases we're having a hard time getting looked at," said Elissa Steglich, an attorney for the Chicago-based Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights Center. "Whatever type of slavery you're dealing with, they're horrors all the same."

Molina was the beneficiary of one case in which the anti-trafficking campaign worked as intended. Her helpers — as she escaped from the dress shop, learned English and gained legal U.S. residence — included the

FBIand the Los Angeles-based Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, which provides victims with shelter, legal aid, self-help workshops and other services.

Now a cashier at a discount store and an anti-trafficking advocate, Molina was enticed to California by a woman back home in Mexico's Puebla state, who promised a job and free accommodations.

"I came to the United States with lots of dreams, but when I got here, my dreams were stolen," said Molina, 33, who left three children behind in Mexico.

On Jan. 1, 2002, she worked her first shift at the dressmaker's, sewing roughly 200 party dresses over 12 hours.

Later, the shifts often stretched to 17 hours a day. Molina was locked into the shop at night — sleeping with a co-worker in a small storage room. The shop manager paid Molina roughly $100 a week, confiscated her identify documents, and told her she would be arrested if she went to the authorities.

"For me, it was completely dark, without money, without English, no papers, nothing," Molina said in an interview. "The owner told me, 'You can try to do whatever you want. Dogs in this country have more rights than you.'"

After working 40 days, Molina summoned up the nerve to flee, and soon encountered FBI agents who were investigating the dress shop. They sought her cooperation in prosecuting the owner, and Molina — after difficult deliberations — agreed to help.

"It was really a hard decision," she said. "The owner had always told me I would pay the consequences — or my family in Mexico would suffer — if I went to the authorities. But I thought to myself, 'I don't want one more person to be in the situation I was in.'"

In exchange for her cooperation, Molina received a T-visa — a special status created by Congress in 2000 that allows trafficking victims who assist prosecutors to remain in the United States for three years and then apply for permanent residence. Under the visa provisions, Molina's three children — 14, 12 and 9 — have received permission to join her in California.

Though Congress authorized up to 5,000 T-visas per year, fewer than 700 had been issued overall as of September. Some victim-support experts say the relatively low numbers result from overly strict criteria, notably the requirement that victims assist prosecutors.

"It can be a very difficult decision to come forward and begin a criminal complaint when a victim has every reason to believe a trafficker can make good on a threat against family members," said Steglich, the Chicago immigrant rights attorney.

"There are concerns we're not able to do all we can for those victims who don't want to come forward. We'd like to see more flexibility."

Federal officials defend the rules as necessary to separate fraudulent claims from genuine trafficking cases and to put traffickers out of business.

"The cooperation requirement is essential," said Bradley Schlozman, the Justice Department's acting assistant attorney general for civil rights. "These traffickers are extraordinarily evil — if a victim doesn't come forward, that trafficker is going to turn around and exploit other individuals."

Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families with the

Department of Health and Human Services, said reaching victims and getting them to speak up is a key goal of a new federal program. A national hot line has been set up, fielding more than 2,500 calls to date; the hot line is being advertised in ethnic newspapers and printed on matchbooks distributed in places where victims might find them, such as ladies' rooms in bars and fast-food restaurants.

"The problem is the traffickers are very good at controlling their victims," Horn said. "They don't have access to TV, their ability to learn English is restricted, so getting the message directly to the victims is difficult."

Anti-trafficking task forces have been established in 22 areas nationwide, and training sessions are being held for social workers, health care workers and police officers to educate them about trafficking.

"A cop arrests some street prostitutes, puts them in jail and tries to get someone to deport them — that's exactly what traffickers say to their victims," Horn said. "The cops think they're just doing what they're supposed to do. ... We're training them to know what to look for, what to ask."

Some victims are forcibly abducted to the United States by criminal gangs, but many come willingly, swayed by promises of good jobs or marriage that turn out to be false. Their documents are confiscated by their traffickers, and they are forced into slave labor or prostitution.

Maria Suarez, for example, came from Mexico to Los Angeles legally in 1976, a naive 16-year-old with sixth-grade education and no English, hoping to find work. She was offered a housecleaning job at the home of a 68-year-old man who instead converted her into a virtual slave — threatening her and her family if she told anyone of the rapes and beatings that ensued over the next five years.

In 1981, the man was killed by a neighbor; Suarez agreed to hide the weapon, was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to 25 years to life. Officials later confirmed Suarez's claim of being a battered woman; she was paroled in 2003 and subsequently certified as a trafficking victim eligible for a T-visa. She can stay in the United States at least though next year.

Now 45, Suarez attends Pasadena City College, hoping to gain U.S. citizenship and become a social worker. She urges authorities to be understanding of sex-trafficking victims who are reluctant to speak out.

"It was a disgrace," she said. "How was I going to confront my family and tell them what was happening to me?"

Had the neighbor not killed her abuser, "I would have died there," Suarez said. "I was too scared to tell anyone what was happening. You're overwhelmed by threats of harm to you or your family."

Prior to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, no comprehensive federal law existed to prosecute traffickers. Since 2001, the Justice Department says it has prosecuted 277 traffickers — a threefold increase over the previous four years — and has obtained convictions in every case.

Schlozman said the Justice Department is intent on combatting all types of trafficking, but estimated that about 75 percent of the prosecutions involved sex trafficking.

Some victims' advocates say the government stresses the sex cases because they generate more news coverage or because they are the priority of conservative Christian groups that form an important part of the Bush administration's political base.

"Christian evangelicals see this as an important mission — rescuing women from sex trafficking," said New York University law professor Michael Wishnie, a specialist in immigrant labor issues. "There's a risk of distracting attention from much more common situations (in sweatshops) that many more people find themselves in."

Wing Lam, head of the Chinese Staff and Workers Association in New York City's Chinatown, tries to assist low-paid workers who are abused by their employers but may not qualify as trafficking victims.

Many pay to be smuggled into the United States, then take grueling jobs paying under minimum wage. Because of their illegal status, they hesitate to complain to authorities; the employers are rarely punished.

"The authorities think the workers are colluding with the bosses — that they're not victims because they don't complain," Lam said.

Laura Germino, who combats slave labor on farms as a leader of the Florida-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, said federal agencies could undermine trafficking by cracking down on all types of workplace exploitation.

"You can't view trafficking in a vacuum," she said. "It takes root in industries that already have a range of labor violations — subpoverty wages, no benefits, no labor relations."

Traditionally, law enforcement agencies were unsympathetic to undocumented immigrants, regardless of their situation. However, the recent anti-trafficking initiatives have changed the equation, both for the authorities and the private groups they now rely on to win the confidence of victims.

"Federal prosecutors are not used to dealing with immigrant victims of crime from a positive perspective, so there's been a very difficult, steep learning curve," said immigration law expert Gail Pendleton "It takes time to build trust with immigrant communities. You can't just put up a sign saying 'We help trafficking victims' and expect people to come."

An estimated 40 percent of trafficking victims are under 18, most of them girls. Susan Krehbiel of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service said many of these children are sexually exploited in the United States after travelling here with the consent of relatives who were told genuine opportunities awaited.

Krehbiel conducts workshops with child welfare workers who are unfamiliar with trafficking. "A lot of people thought we were going to talk about the problem overseas — they didn't realize it's a problem in their own backyard," she said.

Given Kachepa was one such young victim; as an 11-year-old orphan in his homeland of Zambia he was recruited into a boys choir that toured the United States for 18 months. Promises of education, free clothes and money for his family proved false, and the boys — constantly threatened by their handlers — were forced through an arduous concert schedule until authorities finally intervened.

Kachepa was taken in by a Colleyville, Texas, couple who became his guardians. Now 19, he obtained a T-visa and entered college in August; he also has become a spokesman on behalf of trafficking victims.

"The most important thing is constant educating of people," he said in a telephone interview. "There's help out there — but victims don't know it."

___

On the Net:

Federal trafficking report: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/crim/wetf/us_assessment_2004.pdf

Coalition To Abolish Slavery and Trafficking: http://www.castla.org/

posted in Anti-Slavery - 6 replies

Genocide is not unlike slavery

2005-09-18T08:41:11Z

The world has watched rather wanly as the Sudan / Darfur crisis has deepened. The U.S. Government, rather than taking meaningful action, has largely stood by and even covered up for the Sudanese with regard to the official links to grievous abuses resulting in much human suffering.

A well-written and concise op-ed piece in the NYT is to be found here, published this week:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18kristof.html?hp

Excerpt:
It was our own Axis of Medieval, and it reflected the feckless response of President Bush to genocide in Darfur. It's not that he favors children being tossed onto bonfires or teenage girls being gang-raped and mutilated, but he can't bother himself to try very hard to stop these horrors, either.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Israel not acting against human trafficking

2005-09-11T01:44:33Z

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/535404.html

U.S. may punish Israel for not acting against human trafficking
By Ruth Sinai, Haaretz Correspondent

The United States may rank Israel among the group of countries not taking action against human trafficking - a move that could result in the imposition of economic sanctions.

In its response to questions on the matter from the U.S. administration, the Justice Ministry noted that while Israel has seen grave cases involving the exploitation of foreign workers, and even isolated incidents that can be defined as trade for the purposes of labor, these cases do not meet the U.S. legal definition of human trafficking.

The U.S. State Department publishes an annual report on international human trafficking, ranking countries according to their efforts to eradicate the trend. In 2001, when the report was first published, Israel was ranked on the lowest tier, among countries that do not meet the minimum standards in the struggle against human trafficking and are not making any efforts to improve.

Over the last three years, however, Israel moved up a notch, and is now included among countries that are making an effort to get better.

Justice Ministry officials fear, however, that the upcoming report, which will be published in June, will again see Israel on the lowest tier. "Israel's position - that foreign workers are exploited but not to the extent of trafficking - was rejected by the Americans," Justice Ministry attorney Miri Sasson told the Knesset committee on foreign workers this week.

Also addressing the panel, the director of the Foreign Ministry's human rights division, Daniel Maron, said: "The United States has no doubt that there is human trafficking in Israel."

One of the central criteria stipulated in U.S. law as a minimal standard for combating the phenomenon is harsh punishment. Human trafficking in the United States carries a penalty of 16 years in jail, whereas in Israel the maximum penalty is one year.

Outgoing panel chairman MK Ran Cohen (Yahad) has asked Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to appoint someone to coordinate the state's fight against trafficking in humans.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Report on the Exploitation of Vietnamese Girls in Cambodia

2005-08-07T16:54:17Z

By Aaron Cohen 18 July 05

I first considered anti-slavery research in Vietnam and Cambodia after coming across an article about the sale of Vietnamese women for $5000 dollars on eBay Singapore in early September, 2004. This blatant manifestation of modern day slavery shocked me. A Vietnamese news correspondent came across web pages about the anti-slavery work I had done in the Sudan and the links we had made between the state-sponsored terrorism of Osama Ben Laden and the Al Qaeda network. At the time, those involved in abducting slaves tried to make the argument that we were involved with rebel armies and a political agenda because we relied on the SPLA (Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Army) for protection and access to these war zones near the front lines of the civil war, but it wasn’t true. Where governments are involved in human slavery it often makes sense to work with the opposition to further the cause of human rights. The situation, I suspected in Vietnam and Cambodia, would not be much different. The real tragedy in Sudan was not the rise of the rebel armies or the terrorist training camps in the northern part of the country; the real tragedy was the widespread and systematic violation of human rights in an entire region and what it would mean for the rest of the world.

The Vietnamese correspondent asked me if I would be willing to investigate the human rights abuses of Vietnamese women and children. She introduced me to a Vietnamese business man living in Garden Grove, California, by the name of Chanh Nguyen. Mr. Nguyen told me more about the plight of thousands of Vietnamese women and girls who were being trafficked into the international sex trade. Although Mr. Nguyen is a charismatic leader of a movement to bring democracy and freedom to Vietnam, his care for Vietnamese victims of slavery and his funding of vocational schools for such victims spoke of his concern for victims of human slavery. After all, like in Sudan, the communist government of Vietnam on the other side was clearly allowing human rights disasters to go on unchecked. And like in Sudan, I would have to go into the field to see for myself. Another journalist friend of mine, Mikel Dunham, who had taken an interest in my work, told me that he would be in Cambodia in November and that he too was interested in learning more about human trafficking. I contacted Mr. Nguyen to let him know of the proposed trip, and he told me that he had many friends in the Cambodian military. He also told me that members of the Cambodian Special forces could retrieve any captive women I might find. Little did I realize that I was about to immerse myself into a conflict between Cambodian Special Forces and Cambodian Police, between Democratic revolutionaries and Communist government agents.

I arrived in Cambodia and began to search out the brothels of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh for under aged victims of sex slavery. The sheer volume of young women, many sold into slavery by family members, and the horrible conditions of their lives overwhelmed Mikel and I. We contacted an unwilling military unit through the US Embassy and a Special Forces unit through Mr. Nguyen’s contacts to assist us with retrieving some of these young girls, many barely 8 years old, from massage parlors and brothels. I will never forget one of these girls. She was 12 years old, from Vietnam, and identified to me only by the number 8 on her shirt as she sat behind the glass waiting for clients. I selected her and took her into the massage room. I told her, “I only want to talk to you.” …That I was lonely and needed a friend. During our thirty minute conversation, she told me that her mother was sick and needed an operation so her uncle sold her. She was now forced to stay in the massage parlor and could not leave until she repaid her debt, $1,200 by sleeping with adult men, or until someone bought her freedom. She was brokenhearted to learn that we could not get her out that night. At 3:45 AM on November 20, I received a call from my contact telling me that the Special Forces were coming to pick me up for the raid. I accompanied them on several raids that night. Each time the girls were taken out of the massage parlors and brothels and taken to a safe location established by the Cambodian military contacts.

The next morning, I tried to call the two regular military escorts who had been assigned to me for protection. One of the soldiers told me in broken English that the Police (affiliated with the Communists) had sent assassins to kill the “Tall American”, that they had heard radio signals implicating my involvement and that they would no longer take my calls. When I attempted to meet another one of the soldiers, he turned and ran from me, proclaiming, as he ran away, “Me no die, me no die.” I sought out my colleague, Mikel Dunham, who had been in Ankor Watt, and told him that we needed to leave immediately. We chose to avoid the airport and fled from those who were pursuing us. We paid a taxi driver $100 to drive us to the other end of the country and programmed a cell phone for international calls so that we could make contact with US diplomats and people who might help us escape. As I arrived at the hotel in an undisclosed location, we felt a huge sense of relief to see Special Forces commandos, sent by Mr. Nguyen. They met us at the hotel and escorted me to the airport. It was not until after I arrived home that I found out that the Cambodian Police had recaptured the group of young girls and taken them away from the shelter to be resold into the sex trade.

As we followed the incident, we realized that many of these girls had been placed in a shelter funded by the US, thus bringing pressure to bear from the US government to find the victims and punish the traffickers. The communist factions within the Cambodian military were pressuring the regular military officials and Police to hide the witnesses as well as the traffickers. As the Cambodian government found themselves in a “pickle” between the US and the Vietnamese government, it became clear to me that the most difficult aspect of slave retrievals in Cambodia was not finding victims, or brave men willing to liberate them. The most difficult aspect of the anti trafficking work would be what to do with the victims and the politics of Communism verses Democracy. As long as governments were profiting from the lucrative trade in persons and as long as corrupt Police officials were willing to participate in the trafficking of human beings, the cry of these young Vietnamese girls forced into prostitution would go unanswered.

Upon my return to the United States, I began receiving threatening phone calls from major political editors suggesting that things would not go well for me or my book, “The Jubilee Prophecy,” if I didn’t “keep my mouth shut.” I did lay low at the advice of my agent and publisher until the incident was officially written about and my report to Ambassador John Miller at the US State Department had been received. I had the opportunity to speak with Ambassador Miller regarding the incident a few months later at a conference in Burbank. The Ambassador suggested that the US government was not happy with the Cambodian Police regarding what has come to be known as “the Cambodian incident”, and that the US intended to do something about it. When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued the official Trafficking in Persons Report for 2005, Cambodia received the worst possible rating, a Tier level 3, which paved the way with the legal status to impose US sanctions against Cambodia.

I began researching factions in the Cambodian government who could help us protect victims. Through the advice of human rights activists in SE Asia such as Chanh Nguyen, I found that the recently appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, the former Majority Senator and General of Special Forces, Mr. Nhek Bun Chhay, was attempting to pass legislation which would grant legal status for Vietnamese victims. Only, the Chief of Police in Phnom Penh had blocked General Chhay’s human rights efforts. Were the politics of SE Asia keeping Vietnamese trafficking victims stuck between the cracks of society? Are the Cambodian Police, at the highest level, profiting from the illicit trade in young girls?

In order to search for the answers to some of these questions I sought a plan to bring a letter of reference from Congressman and Senators in the US government to both perceived friends and foes in the Cambodian government. In April of 2005 I traveled again to Cambodia. At the time I presented the letter of reference from Congressman Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania to General Nhek Bun Chhay, who was the majority ranking Senator. Despite Senator Chhay’s efforts to grant The United States International Mission “USIM” the ability to assist Vietnamese victims of human trafficking in Cambodia, the permits were not granted because of the opposition of the Chief of Police and one month later, the Police began “detaining” USIM volunteers in Cambodia. Not only had the police blocked our efforts to retrieve and rehabilitate young girls from slavery, but now they were arresting and detaining our volunteers. Is it the politics of the Free Vietnam group aligned with Mr. Nguyen that they are so concerned about in Cambodia, or is it the lucrative and extremely profitable multi million dollar trade in Vietnamese girls?

I was amazed that the same group of people who had re-abducted the Vietnamese human trafficking victims in November 2004 were still trying with all their power to keep things as they were. The US was pumping money into Cambodia for victims of Human Trafficking. Groups like World Vision were taking the money, but no one was speaking out about the fact that the majority of the victims, who are predominately Vietnamese were not being allowed access to the protection, aid, or assistance, and in fact, at the highest level of the Police bureaucracy, officials were doing everything they could to prevent a change in policy, which could assist the Vietnamese victims.

What remains to be done in Cambodia?

Members of USIM are actively pursuing additional letters of reference from Senator Sam Brownback and from Ambassador John Miller to urge the Cambodian government to rethink their policy which denies non Cambodian victims of human slavery access to protection, humanitarian aid, and assistance. Now we are working to free human trafficking victims and our volunteers from captivity in Cambodia. Mr. Chanh Nguyen continues to be the most controversial and outspoken defender of human rights on behalf of Vietnamese victims, but the question remains… Who will speak for the victims?
Certainly factions in both the US Government and in the Cambodian government have not done enough. But there are good leaders like Congressman Pitts, Chanh Nguyen, and Deputy Prime Minister Chhay, who are trying to help Vietnamese victims of human trafficking in Cambodia.

The real question is not whether or not as a society we will support Communism or Democracy in Vietnam and Cambodia. The real question is whether or not we will defend human rights.

For more information about slavery in Cambodia and Vietnam visit the USIM website at www.theusim.com

posted in Anti-Slavery - 3 replies

Accidental Death or Assassination?

2005-08-04T16:27:59Z

Garang's body flown round S. Sudan for mourning
04 Aug 2005 15:51:11 GMT

Source: Reuters

Background GRAPHIC: Niger food crisis hits critical level

CRISIS PROFILE-What's going on in Sudan's Darfur?

MORE
(changes dateline, previous NEW SITE; adds details)

By Katie Nguyen

KURMUK, Sudan, Aug 4 (Reuters) - Thousands of distraught and disbelieving south Sudanese flocked to see the body of their former leader John Garang on Thursday as it was transported by plane around the vast region for a final farewell.

Garang's death in a weekend helicopter crash -- just three weeks after he was sworn in as Sudan's first vice president under a January north-south peace deal -- has devastated his followers around the expanse of bush and mountains.

"I want to show you peace is peace and everything will go well," Garang's widow Rebecca told a crowd who gathered at Kurmuk, a town on the Ethiopian border where the southern rebels remember a famous victory against government troops in 1997.

Garang led the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) in a bitter struggle with the Islamist Khartoum-based government for 21 years before signing the peace deal earlier this year to end Africa's then longest-running civil war.

"We have a saying in our dialect: When a hero dies in the village, people cannot cry," Rebecca Garang added.

She shook hands with mourners gathered on a dirt airstrip where the cargo plane carrying Garang's body landed.

The corpse was flown there from New Site, the small settlement where SPLM leaders gathered straight after his death to pay last respects and discuss their future.

The plane was then heading for Rumbek later on Thursday before Saturday's funeral in Juba, the regional capital.

The SPLM want an inquiry into his death but do not suspect foul play. Even so, Garang's death sparked three days of rioting between Arab northerners and animist or Christian southerners in the capital Khartoum that killed at least 130 people.

"KEEP GARANG'S PROMISE"

In Kurmuk, set in fertile, mountainous terrain, Christians and Muslims from both south and north live side-by-side.

Locals said SPLA/M members went round on Wednesday night telling residents to come out and view Garang's body, in part to counter some scepticism over whether he had really died.

"We came here with the body of Garang for you to see. We brought him for you to witness that he is not alive," SPLM deputy chairman Riak Machar told the subdued crowd.

Garang's coffin, with a flag of southern Sudan draped over, was laid under a makeshift shelter of poles and tarpaulin.

Machar, who clashed with Garang in the past during bouts of in-fighting among the main figures in southern politics, said the peace deal the dead SPLM boss helped forge must stick.

"We have to keep his (Garang's) promise. We have to implement the peace agreement," he said.

At New Site, before the body was flown away with a 100-member SPLA security escort in the plane, prayers were said around Garang's coffin.

"I say with my heart today the SPLM has become like a body without a head," said Bahjat Batarseh, a U.S. church minister who said he was a friend of Garang's and came to Sudan after learning of his death.

"If you keep divided, you will be destroyed. If you are united with one spirit, one heart, you will stand."

Garang had strong support in America during the war that killed two million people, most from hunger and disease.

Some southerners fear their position may be weakened without him. The SPLM appointed Garang's deputy, Salva Kiir, to formally succeed him and he is expected to be sworn in as first vice president in coming weeks.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Cambodia and Slavery

2005-07-25T16:17:05Z

Report on the Exploitation of Vietnamese Girls in Cambodia

by Aaron Cohen July 05

I first considered anti-slavery research in Vietnam and Cambodia after coming across an article about the sale of Vietnamese women for $5000 dollars on eBay Singapore in early September, 2004. This blatant manifestation of modern day slavery shocked me. A Vietnamese news correspondent came across web pages about the anti-slavery work I had done in the Sudan and the links we had made between the state-sponsored terrorism of Osama Ben Laden and the Al Qaeda network. At the time, those involved in abducting slaves tried to make the argument that we were involved with rebel armies and a political agenda because we relied on the SPLA (Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Army) for protection and access to these war zones near the front lines of the civil war, but it wasn’t true. Where governments are involved in human slavery it often makes sense to work with the opposition to further the cause of human rights. The situation, I suspected in Vietnam and Cambodia, would not be much different. The real tragedy in Sudan was not the rise of the rebel armies or the terrorist training camps in the northern part of the country; the real tragedy was the widespread and systematic violation of human rights in an entire region and what it would mean for the rest of the world.

The Vietnamese correspondent asked me if I would be willing to investigate the human rights abuses of Vietnamese women and children. She introduced me to a Vietnamese business man living in Garden Grove, California, by the name of Chanh Nguyen. Mr. Nguyen told me more about the plight of thousands of Vietnamese women and girls who were being trafficked into the international sex trade. Although Mr. Nguyen is a charismatic leader of a movement to bring democracy and freedom to Vietnam, his care for Vietnamese victims of slavery and his funding of vocational schools for such victims spoke of his concern for victims of human slavery. After all, like in Sudan, the communist government of Vietnam on the other side was clearly allowing human rights disasters to go on unchecked. And like in Sudan, I would have to go into the field to see for myself. Another journalist friend of mine, Mikel Dunham, who had taken an interest in my work, told me that he would be in Cambodia in November and that he too was interested in learning more about human trafficking. I contacted Mr. Nguyen to let him know of the proposed trip, and he told me that he had many friends in the Cambodian military. He also told me that members of the Cambodian Special forces could retrieve any captive women I might find. Little did I realize that I was about to immerse myself into a conflict between Cambodian Special Forces and Cambodian Police, between Democratic revolutionaries and Communist government agents.

I arrived in Cambodia and began to search out the brothels of Siem Reap and Phnom Penh for under aged victims of sex slavery. The sheer volume of young women, many sold into slavery by family members, and the horrible conditions of their lives overwhelmed Mikel and I. We contacted an unwilling military unit through the US Embassy and a Special Forces unit through Mr. Nguyen’s contacts to assist us with retrieving some of these young girls, many barely 8 years old, from massage parlors and brothels. I will never forget one of these girls. She was 12 years old, from Vietnam, and identified to me only by the number 8 on her shirt as she sat behind the glass waiting for clients. I selected her and took her into the massage room. I told her, “I only want to talk to you.” …That I was lonely and needed a friend. During our thirty minute conversation, she told me that her mother was sick and needed an operation so her uncle sold her. She was now forced to stay in the massage parlor and could not leave until she repaid her debt, $1,200 by sleeping with adult men, or until someone bought her freedom. She was brokenhearted to learn that we could not get her out that night. At 3:45 AM on November 20, I received a call from my contact telling me that the Special Forces were coming to pick me up for the raid. I accompanied them on several raids that night. Each time the girls were taken out of the massage parlors and brothels and taken to a safe location established by the Cambodian military contacts.

The next morning, I tried to call the two regular military escorts who had been assigned to me for protection. One of the soldiers told me in broken English that the Police (affiliated with the Communists) had sent assassins to kill the “Tall American”, that they had heard radio signals implicating my involvement and that they would no longer take my calls. When I attempted to meet another one of the soldiers, he turned and ran from me, proclaiming, as he ran away, “Me no die, me no die.” I sought out my colleague, Mikel Dunham, who had been in Ankor Watt, and told him that we needed to leave immediately. We chose to avoid the airport and fled from those who were pursuing us. We paid a taxi driver $100 to drive us to the other end of the country and programmed a cell phone for international calls so that we could make contact with US diplomats and people who might help us escape. As I arrived at the hotel in an undisclosed location, we felt a huge sense of relief to see Special Forces commandos, sent by Mr. Nguyen. They met us at the hotel and escorted me to the airport. It was not until after I arrived home that I found out that the Cambodian Police had recaptured the group of young girls and taken them away from the shelter to be resold into the sex trade.

As we followed the incident, we realized that many of these girls had been placed in a shelter funded by the US, thus bringing pressure to bear from the US government to find the victims and punish the traffickers. The communist factions within the Cambodian military were pressuring the regular military officials and Police to hide the witnesses as well as the traffickers. As the Cambodian government found themselves in a “pickle” between the US and the Vietnamese government, it became clear to me that the most difficult aspect of slave retrievals in Cambodia was not finding victims, or brave men willing to liberate them. The most difficult aspect of the anti trafficking work would be what to do with the victims and the politics of Communism verses Democracy. As long as governments were profiting from the lucrative trade in persons and as long as corrupt Police officials were willing to participate in the trafficking of human beings, the cry of these young Vietnamese girls forced into prostitution would go unanswered.

Upon my return to the United States, I began receiving threatening phone calls from former CNN political editors suggesting that things would not go well for me or my book, “The Jubilee Prophecy,” if I didn’t “keep my mouth shut.” I did lay low at the advice of my agent and publisher until the incident was officially written about and my report to Ambassador John Miller at the US State Department had been received. I had the opportunity to speak with Ambassador Miller regarding the incident a few months later at a conference in Burbank. The Ambassador suggested that the US government was not happy with the Cambodian Police regarding what has come to be known as “the Cambodian incident”, and that the US intended to do something about it. When US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued the official Trafficking in Persons Report for 2005, Cambodia received the worst possible rating, a Tier level 3, which paved the way with the legal status to impose US sanctions against Cambodia.

I began researching factions in the Cambodian government who could help us protect victims. Through the advice of human rights activists in SE Asia such as Chanh Nguyen, I found that the recently appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia, the former Majority Senator and General of Special Forces, Mr. Nhek Bun Chhay, was attempting to pass legislation which would grant legal status for Vietnamese victims. Only, the Chief of Police in Phnom Penh, Hok Long Di, had blocked General Chhay’s human rights efforts. Were the politics of SE Asia keeping Vietnamese trafficking victims stuck between the cracks of society? Are the Cambodian Police, at the highest level, profiting from the illicit trade in young girls?

In order to search for the answers to some of these questions I sought a plan to bring a letter of reference from Congressman and Senators in the US government to both perceived friends and foes in the Cambodian government. In April of 2005 I traveled again to Cambodia. At the time I presented the letter of reference from Congressman Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania to General Nhek Bun Chhay, who was the majority ranking Senator. Despite Senator Chhay’s efforts to grant The United States International Mission “USIM” the ability to assist Vietnamese victims of human trafficking in Cambodia, the permits were not granted because of the opposition of the Chief of Police, Hok Long Di, and one month later, the Police began “detaining” USIM volunteers in Cambodia. Not only had the police blocked our efforts to retrieve and rehabilitate young girls from slavery, but now they were arresting and detaining our volunteers. Is it the politics of the Free Vietnam group aligned with Mr. Nguyen that they are so concerned about in Cambodia, or is it the lucrative and extremely profitable multi million dollar trade in Vietnamese girls?

I was amazed that the same group of people who had re-abducted the Vietnamese human trafficking victims in November 2004 were still trying with all their power to keep things as they were. The US was pumping money into Cambodia for victims of Human Trafficking. Groups like World Vision were taking the money, but no one was speaking out about the fact that the majority of the victims, who are predominately Vietnamese were not being allowed access to the protection, aid, or assistance, and in fact, at the highest level of the Police bureaucracy, officials were doing everything they could to prevent a change in policy, which could assist the Vietnamese victims.

What remains to be done in Cambodia?

Members of USIM are actively pursuing additional letters of reference from Senator Sam Brownback and from Ambassador John Miller to urge the Cambodian government to rethink their policy which denies non Cambodian victims of human slavery access to protection, humanitarian aid, and assistance. Now we are working to free human trafficking victims and our volunteers from captivity in Cambodia. Mr. Chanh Nguyen continues to be the most controversial and outspoken defender of human rights on behalf of Vietnamese victims, but the question remains… Who will speak for the victims?
Certainly factions in both the US Government and in the Cambodian government have not done enough. But there are good leaders like Congressman Pitts, Chanh Nguyen, and Deputy Prime Minister Chhay, who are trying to help Vietnamese victims of human trafficking in Cambodia.

The real question is not whether or not as a society we will support Communism or Democracy in Vietnam and Cambodia. The real question is whether or not we will defend human rights.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

A great charity

2005-07-24T02:44:55Z

International Justice Mission is a great charity dedicated to fighting slavery and forced prostitution. The website is www.ijm.org.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

New tribe on "blood" or "conflict" diamonds

2005-07-20T11:55:10Z

If you want to show support, or to discuss, check out and join: http://tribes.tribe.net/conflictdiamonds

Some groups in countries in Africa engage in slavery to mine diamonds for terrorist groups.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

2005 Human Trafficking Report available

2005-06-06T15:53:02Z

The State Deparment's yearly Human Trafficking Report, which is the gold standard in the State of Slavery in the world today, has been released:

http://wid.ap.org/documents/2005humantrafficking.pdf

Essential reading for all abolitionists. Comes with many photos and case studies, 258 pages in all.

This study has already been denounced by the Saudi Arabian government as insulting and full of lies.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Slavery in Britain

2005-05-09T06:35:46Z

Here is a horrifying and violent case outlining the sex slave problems they are having in Britain. The usual situation where underage eastern european children are lured there with promises of jobs, then sold into slavery, raped, beaten, forced to have sex with men for money which their owners keep - basically the same situation as here in the US.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/05/09/nslave09.xml

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

ISO hidden history of 1811 largest slave rebellion in US

2005-04-26T19:32:11Z

yo --

i know this is a tribe for current issues, but i am researching the hidden history of the 1811 River Road Slave Rebellion, supposedly the largest in the US with 500+ slaves covering 30 miles over 3 days. if anyone knows of any dissertations or other research relating to this, i would appreciate it. btw, river road is in louisiana near new orleans.

thanks.

peace and freedom,
ceci

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

CBS special on sex slavery - tonight

2005-02-27T04:06:51Z

I just saw it. It runs 10-11pm. Those of you in other time zones have a chance to catch it if you see this.

Highly recommended.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

not funny

2005-02-21T17:25:12Z

http://www.nationallampoon.com/nl/02_fb/news/02_slave.asp

posted in Anti-Slavery - 2 replies

Genocide today in Sudan

2005-02-03T09:45:29Z

Christian Solidarity International

June 29, 2004

Former Congressman and Radio Commentator Arrested at Sudanese Embassy

‘Stop the Genocide and Free the Slaves’ Demonstration

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Christian Solidarity International (CSI), together with Sudan Campaign partners, marched on the Sudanese Embassy in Washington D.C., protesting against state-sponsored genocide and slavery. Two Sudan Campaign members, former Congressman Rev. Walter Fauntroy and radio talk show host Joe Madison, were arrested by Secret Service agents protesting through non-violent civil disobedience. Wrapping yellow “Crime Scene” police tape around the entrance Madison declared the embassy a crime scene, noting that the racist Government of Sudan is guilty of genocide and slavery against black Sudanese.

The Sudan Campaign demonstration was timed to coincide with Secretary of State Colin Powell’s visit to western Sudan where government-sponsored ethnic cleansing raids have resulted within the past twelve months in the displacement of over one million Black Africans, the death of tens of thousands and the enslavement of others. The genocide process in Sudan has progressed in tandem with a U.S. supported peace initiative directed by the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, former Sen. John Danforth. In October 2002, President George W. Bush and both Houses of Congress, including Sen. John Kerry, identified the Government of Sudan as a perpetrator of acts of “genocide”. But since then, the U.S. government has taken no further punitive measures against Khartoum. U.S. government officials have warned that hundred of thousands may die in the coming months.

CSI and Sudan Campaign partners urged the United States to work closely with Sudan’s oppressed democratic opposition to restore respect for human rights; mobilize international forces to guarantee the safe return of survivors of ethnic cleansing; and to stand in the vanguard of efforts to suspend the Government of Sudan’s membership of the United Nations.

CSI’s Executive Director, Dr. John Eibner, issued call to action, stating: “I commend the many people of good will throughout this county, people of every race and religion who are not prepared to stand idly by when the lives of fellow human beings are destroyed en mass by the evil forces of genocide and slavery. Let us all join together to STOP the GENOCIDE and FREE the SLAVES!”

.

The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, declared, “Enough is enough!” He said, “It is our hope and expectation that the action we take today will spur people of conscience to come to this place everyday, week and month, for however long it takes until the killing stops.”

Other speakers included Nina Shea, Freedom House Director for the Center for Religious Freedom, Faith McDonnell, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center for Reformed Judaism, and Dr. Charles Jacobs, President of the American Anti-Slavery Group.

CSI Washington Representative, the Rev. Dr. Keith Roderick concluded the demonstration, calling for the international community to stop sweeping the crimes of the Sudanese government under the rug. “Lies and denial cannot protect the Sudanese government any longer from its complicity with evil.”

Contact: Keith Roderick at 202 498 8644 or keith.roderick@csi-usa.org

posted in Anti-Slavery - 2 replies

Bush decries human trafficking

2005-02-03T09:41:12Z

The Associated Press
Updated: 12:09 p.m. ET July 16, 2004TAMPA

TAMPA, Fla. - President Bush on Friday urged aggressive law enforcement to combat the crime of human trafficking, as the president zeroed in on a critical section of Florida’s electorate that could tip the state to Bush or John Kerry in November.

"Human life is the gift of our Creator. It should never be for sale," Bush told a Justice Department conference with participants including the president’s brother, Jeb, Florida’s governor.

Bush’s remarks at the first-ever national training conference on human trafficking address an issue of vital concern to Evangelical Christians, one of the most important components of Bush’s political base nationally. Conservative religious groups around the country have helped focus the White House’s attention on trafficking. Florida is one of five states that have passed laws against human trafficking.

Kerry’s campaign criticized Bush, saying the Clinton administration focused significant attention on the issue and that Bush waited too long to submit an international protocol against trafficking to the U.S. Senate.

Human traffickers bring as many as 17,500 people into the United States every year, trapping them in slavery-like conditions for forced sex, sweatshop labor and domestic servitude, the Bush administration says. As many as 800,000 people were trafficked across borders worldwide in the last year, 80 percent of them women.

“You’re in a fight against evil and the American people are grateful for your dedication and service,” the president told the conference. He said the administration’s approach is to combine stiff prison terms for the traffickers combined with compassion and care for the victims.

Kerry campaign spokesman Phil Singer said, “Just as he’s waited three long years to deal with addressing homeland security and fixing our intelligence problems, George Bush has dragged his heels on this important issue.”

The White House says the president has long been interested in stopping human trafficking, promoting a $300 million program to support anti-trafficking strategies and calling on the United Nations last year to raise the issue high on its agenda. The site of the three-day meeting, the hotly contested Tampa area, narrowly went to Bush in 2000 and it is Ground Zero for the state of Florida in the November election, said University of South Florida political science professor Susan MacManus.

On his way out of Tampa, the president, daughter Barbara and brother Jeb stopped off at La Tropicana Cafe and greeted the lunchtime customers who applauded and posed for pictures.

“If you get on TV in Tampa you reach one-quarter of all the registered voters in the state,” said MacManus. She said one in every five voters in the 10-county Tampa media market is unaffiliated with either political party.

The Kerry campaign says it has been redirecting some of its ad money to states like Florida.

Bush also addresses a campaign rally Friday in Beckley, W.Va., one week after Kerry rallied an estimated 4,500 supporters at the county airport just outside town. Bush was in West Virginia for the Fourth of July, addressing a campaign rally on the steps of the state capitol.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 16 replies

Angelina Jolie to host InHuman Traffic on MTV February 10th

2005-02-03T09:33:31Z

Angelina Jolie will host a documentary on MTV Europe called "Inhuman Traffic" February 10, which will also be streamed on the website MTVExit.org. The documentary highlights the human rights issues of sex trafficking and tells stories of real people affected by trafficking. Since this is an important issue, MTV has decided to make the entire thing available free of charge and rights free to broadcasters worldwide!

To see more about the documentary go to MTVExit.org, where you can view the (wmv file) teaser and the trailer.

her statement, as US ambassador checking out slavery internationally!
http://www.burmaproject.org/tradingwomenjolie.html

the film, trading women, she narrated
http://www.der.org/films/trading-women.html

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

From the Philidephia Inquire: article on two books on human trafficking

2004-10-18T22:11:15Z

email this print this
Posted on Sun, Oct. 17, 2004

Carlin Romano | Sexual slavery: Real, but largely ignored

Two books fault media, international officials.

By Carlin Romano

Inquirer Book Critic

The Natashas
Inside the New Global Sex Trade
By Victor Malarek
Arcade. 303 pp. $25

Woman, Child for Sale
The New Slave Trade in the 21st Century
By Gilbert King
Penguin. 232 pp. $9.95

Abduct, enslave and kill foreigners to make terrorist points, and world news media not only provide regular coverage, but sometimes agree - as in the case of Al-Jazeera - to enable the crimes.

Abduct, enslave and kill foreigners to make money off their bodies and there's a good chance you stay under the radar while attracting the best clients around - U.N. peacekeepers, NGO humanitarian workers, U.S. contractors, sleazy businessmen, and more.

It's not hard to understand why the mounting global disaster of human trafficking gets so little mass-media attention. Even after decades of marketing and teasing sex in endless ads and programming, most media find it tough to report on sex. Particularly sordid sex.

Teenagers might be watching. And we wouldn't want them to see what so many of their peers experience.

The publication of these two modest books - The Natashas by Victor Malarek and Woman, Child for Sale by Gilbert King - reminds us of how seamy the whole explosion in human trafficking has become.

"Trafficking in human beings is now the third-largest moneymaking venture in the world," writes Malarek, a Ukrainian Canadian investigative journalist, "after illegal weapons and drugs... the United Nations estimates that the trade nets organized crime more than $12 billion a year."

Yet its moments in the spotlight are few.

One came on Sept. 23, 2003, when President Bush denounced human trafficking in his annual talk to the U.N. General Assembly.

"Each year," Bush stated, "an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are bought, sold or forced across the world's borders... . The victims of the sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life - an underground of brutality and lonely fear... . Governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery."

That glimmer of light on a dark side of globalization hardly triggered an ovation.

That's why Malarek's and King's books usefully complement coverage of more frequently discussed problems on the international scene.

You want to talk about corruption in U.N. missions overseas? Thuggish behavior by U.S. security contractors? Tolerance of brutal criminal elements in places, such as Bosnia, that we don't want to catch fire again?

You don't need the Oil-for-Food program. It's all present in the world of sex slavery.

Malarek focuses on trafficking of women from former Soviet states. King, a New York journalist, examines slavery more broadly and historically. He looks at imprisonment of domestic workers and directs readers to a rich cache of reference materials.

The point both men drive home is simple. Why isn't there more public outrage?

In explaining world sexual slavery, Malarek suggests that many people don't understand the criminality that drives the supply side of the commercial sex business.

They think prostitutes, lap-dancers and the like from impoverished places like Moldova or Ukraine choose to work in places like Bosnia the way, say, French lycee graduates apply to Ph.D. programs in the United States.

To better themselves. To earn crucial money. Freely. Tawdry choices, perhaps, but still choices.

Malarek argues that unscrupulous deception and violence, not choice, is the rule rather than the exception. Thugs take advantage of desperation among impoverished women.

As Malarek relates in horrific detail, women in former Soviet and Eastern European states, particularly naive small-town women, respond to ads promising respectable jobs in countries where they can make more than a few dollars a day.

Once they permit advertisers to pay for their airline tickets and handle their visas, the first step into slavery has begun. On their arrival in Bosnia, or Serbia, or other countries, thugs may seize their documents, lock them in apartments, beat them senseless, and threaten their families: all to coerce them into prostitution.

Referred to in the trade as "Natashas" regardless of where they come from, such young women suddenly find themselves without any protection. They've surrendered their passports. They're guarded by goons with guns. They're told (often accurately) that local cops cooperate with the traffickers. They're even ordered to give police "freebies" as bribes.

You remember the "Killing Fields" of Cambodia? Serbia now contains "Breaking Fields," according to Malarek. In Belgrade, apartments exist in which as many as 50 to 100 young foreign women suffer as slaves. They're forced to strip for inspection by traffickers who buy and smuggle them to brothels in Kosovo, or Greece, or Israel - or the United States (into which an estimated 20,000 people a year are trafficked).

Serbian mobsters reportedly beheaded a Ukrainian woman in front of fellow prisoners to enforce their fear.

Thankfully, both Malerek and King also report good news and decent people fighting back.

While the State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons" list remains too politicized, it keeps some pressure on countries by assigning them to more or less shameful "tiers." The U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which came into effect on Dec. 25, 2003, also promises increased action.

Individual do-gooders persist, like the Puglian priest Don Cesare, who founded his Regina Pacis center in 1995 to help women trafficked from Albania to Italy. Philadelphia can take pride in former police officer David Lamb, who turned whistle-blower after a stint in Bosnia for DynCorp, the U.S. firm that recruits U.S. police for U.N. work in world hot spots. (That's the same firm now under criticism for its rough tactics in providing security for Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai.)

Lamb testified to Congress in 2002 about the participation of U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia's sex-slave business.

Both Malarek and King make recommendations. Corrupt police from Bosnia to Israel must be punished for tolerating rape and slavery just because the victims have engaged (often against their will) in prostitution. Corrupt peacekeepers must be stopped from converting "humanitarian" missions into sex tourism in places such as Bosnia (where, Malarek reports, 260 bars house up to 5,000 Eastern European women "who've become nothing more than playthings for the international soldiers and staff").

King asks a mind-boggling question: "How could it be that there are twice as many people enslaved today... [as] were enslaved in an African slave trade that lasted centuries?"

How indeed?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact book critic Carlin Romano at 215-854-5615 or cromano@phillynews.com. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/carlinromano.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Romania's blighted street children

2004-09-20T19:56:29Z

Romania's blighted street children

By Glenda Cooper
BBC News, Bucharest

In a wasteland next to a main road in Bucharest some of Romania's street children - scraps of humanity - peer out from under a vandalised billboard.

Their home is in a tunnel running under the city that forms part of a network carrying hot water pipes.

There is no natural light - just a few candles on the walls. Rubbish is strewn across the floor.

And there are children who say they are 16, but look no older than 10, sniffing glue from bags.

These children say this "home" is their best option.

It is an option taken by 2,000 children in Romania, according to official statistics. But children's charities believe the figure is a woeful underestimate.

'A tragedy'

In the economic chaos following the collapse of communism, poverty has forced many onto the street to beg, steal and survive in any way they can.

Group leader Joby, 21, says he has lived in the tunnel for nine years.

"I do not wish anyone to be in this situation," he said.

"Everyone here would like to have their own family and home. The children on the street are my family - they are my brothers."

But poverty is joined by another factor. Romania is in the midst of great change and is aiming to end its reputation for neglect and abuse of children.

The large orphanages - which stand as infamous remnants of former leader Nicolai Ceausescu's era - are to be closed. International adoption has effectively been banned.

These measures must be achieved by 2007 if Romania wants to join the European Union.

The goals are admirable.

But corruption is rife and the infrastructure is shaky to non-existent in Romania. And charity workers say the measures result in many children being turned out of orphanages.

They are returning to violent homes or entering badly monitored foster care - and then ending up on the streets, charities say.

But poverty is joined by another factor. Romania is in the midst of great change and is aiming to end its reputation for neglect and abuse of children.

The large orphanages - which stand as infamous remnants of former leader Nicolai Ceausescu's era - are to be closed. International adoption has effectively been banned.

These measures must be achieved by 2007 if Romania wants to join the European Union.

The goals are admirable.

But corruption is rife and the infrastructure is shaky to non-existent in Romania. And charity workers say the measures result in many children being turned out of orphanages.

They are returning to violent homes or entering badly monitored foster care - and then ending up on the streets, charities say.

But he is most concerned by the increased targeting of these children by traffickers and paedophiles.

"They are taken in a car and sold like an animal, and used for prostitution in different houses," he said.

He did not believe how bad the problem was until he discovered an illegal brothel near his sister's house.

"He had girls, starting with eight- or nine-year-olds - most of them coming up off the street," Mr Zaharia said.

Vulnerable girls

The Romanian government acknowledges the problem of child sex abuse, but it says the situation is worse in other countries.

It also says the numbers of street children are going down.

United Nations rapporteur on child prostitution and trafficking Juan Miguel Petit disagrees.
He has just finished a two-week fact-finding tour of Romania, where he says he was shocked to find that girls were being kidnapped by force.

"Many of them were vulnerable girls who were told lies and were told they were going to France or Spain," he said.

"This is a desperate situation.

"You can imagine the future of these kids in months, weeks or even years."

He says that praise is due to the government for its efforts to reform, but he is far from convinced that the new methods of care are working.

"Romania is still in a risk situation because the basic transformations haven't happened," he said.

Hunger pangs

Back in the tunnel, all but one of the candles have blown out. The heat and stench of the glue used by the children is unbearable.
Christian, 16, says the street children use this drug because it suppresses hunger pangs.

He ended up on the street after leaving an orphanage where he was beaten and forced to beg by an older gang.

"I told the directors of the orphanage, but they didn't help me because the gang gave them money and drink," he said.

Toughness is all in this world. A momentary lapse can mean perpetual victimhood.

Geena, who is 16 and dressed like a boy, lets slip that she used to get beaten up when she was first on the street. She quickly recovers herself.

"I've never been harmed. Just one time I fell over in the street, but that's just because I fainted," she said.

The Romanian government says past action to help street children has been ineffective, but there are now better co-ordinated programmes.

But what worries charities like City of Hope is that of the 36,000 children currently in orphanages, a third are due to be moved out in the next year alone to keep Romania on course in child reform.

If the infrastructure for good foster care and smaller homes is not there - and with international adoption about to be banned - they fear many more Geenas, Christians and Jobys could arrive on the street.

Glenda Cooper's report was broadcast on BBC Radio 4's PM programme on 16 September 2004.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Experts: Vt. Sex Slavery Fits U.S. Pattern

2004-07-23T18:09:45Z

Experts in Sex Slavery Say Vermont Case Fits Pattern of Problem Throughout United States

The Associated Press

ESSEX JUNCTION, Vt. July 23, 2004 — The regulars at the Park Place Tavern weren't surprised when police raided what is being described as an Asian brothel in a small house across their shared driveway. But they were surprised when news reports linked the now-closed Tokyo Spa and two other health clubs in the area to what police say is an international prostitution ring that smuggled Asian women into the United States and made them sex slaves.
"We joked about it here all the time," said Sandy Maloney, who lives in an apartment complex out back.

Maloney said she watched as older men driving expensive out-of-state sport utility vehicles visited the Tokyo Spa at all hours.

Experts in sexual slavery say the Vermont case fits the pattern of a problem that is reaching into the smallest corners of the country.

"Modern-day slavery is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world," said Derek Ellerman, co-executive director of the Washington-based Polaris Project, a grass-roots anti-trafficking organization.

"They have done a very good job of spreading into suburban and even rural areas," Ellerman said. "It's a market-driven criminal industry. Wherever there is demand for commercial sex the traffickers will spread to those areas."

There's an eviction notice on the door of the light gray two-story clapboard house that operated as the Tokyo Spa for about a year. The city of Burlington is moving to evict the tenants from another of the spas. At the third, the building owner insists all the activity inside was legal.

Police, though, contend the clubs were offering sexual services along with massages. During the raids earlier this month, authorities arrested eight women five Korean and three Chinese on federal immigration charges. All except two have been released, said Essex police Lt. Gary L. Taylor. No state criminal charges have been filed.

Taylor refused to discuss the ongoing investigation but knew of no other organized prostitution in Vermont's history.

"It's the first time I am aware of," Taylor said.

In court documents, police say the women who worked at the spas never left. Even groceries were brought to the house.

One Korean woman told investigators she had been smuggled into the United States and had only recently arrived at the Tokyo Spa.

Court documents filed by police to get search warrants for the three businesses outline what authorities say could be a link to international organized crime and sexual slavery. Similar operations, according to the papers, are being investigated by federal authorities in New York City, New Jersey and Maine.

"The way these massage parlors or spas or health clubs work, they are really fronts for prostitution," said Linda M. Hughes of the University of Rhode Island.

Hughes, who has studied international sex trafficking for 15 years, said many of the women have been smuggled into the United States and are being held "by some sort of forced fraud or coercion."

Typically, sex rings offer to bring women into the United States for a fee. Once in the United States, the women are forced to repay the cost of their passage by working as prostitutes.

The women will give most of the money they make to the brothel owner. They are charged for rent and expenses. They can be fined for rule infractions, Hughes said.

"There are all sorts of things they do to prevent these women from getting out," Hughes said. "That may mean these women have been enslaved for 20 years."

The women are then rotated between the brothels as part of a network that has, in some cases, operated nationwide.

Asian women aren't the only ones enslaved. The Vermont case appears to be a Korean network, Ellerman said. And traffickers bring women to the United States from around the world.

Law enforcement has a new tool for fighting the international trafficking. The federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Prevention Act of 2000 defines women who were forced into prostitution as victims rather than criminals, Hughes said. The statute also offers a range of social benefits and services, including a visa to stay in the United States, for victims who agree to cooperate with the authorities.

Ellerman said the effort to get the public to recognize sexual slavery as a problem is still in its infancy.

"It's much like domestic violence was 30 years ago. It took years to mainstream," Ellerman said. "We're at that beginning stage right now."

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

Amazing Interview

2004-07-09T09:08:56Z

This is a Fresh Air interview with Peter Landesman, an investigative journalist.

The stories that he tells are stunning. I suggest listening to this interview when you can just listen.

http://freshair.npr.org/day_fa.jhtml?displayValue=day&todayDate=01/26/2004

This has been really inspiring to me. What kinds of things have you read or heard that have inspired you?

Best,
-Raku

posted in Anti-Slavery - 2 replies

Slavery, Sex Trafficking, and the Republican convention

2004-06-29T14:43:53Z

The Republican Convention

This will be a major event for sex traffickers. Prostitution is not a vocation of choice, as we know, but a vocation of desperation and of force!

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Sex pros get
ready for party
BY JOSE MARTINEZ
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Monday, June 28th, 2004

With thousands of Republicans set to invade the city this summer, high-priced escorts and strippers are preparing for one grand old party.

Agencies are flying in extra call girls from around the globe to meet the expected demand during the Aug. 30-Sept. 2 gathering at Madison Square Garden.

"We have girls from London, Seattle, California, all coming in for that week," said a madam at a Manhattan escort service. "It's the week everyone wants to work."

"It's going to be big," agreed one operator at a midtown escort service.

Charging from $300 to upwards of $1,000 for an hour of companionship and a whole lot more, escorts said they can always count on conventioneers for big business.

"It doesn't matter what party you come from," said Robyn Few, a $500-an-hour California call girl who now runs Sex Workers Outreach Project, an advocacy group. "When you want to buy sex, you will."

That's the hope among escort services expecting a windfall from randy Republicans.

"We've got everything organized - the hotels, the flights, the advertisements," said another escort service operator. "We'll probably have 60 girls that week, instead of the usual 30."

Political conventions have long been a boon for the sex industry.

At the 1992 Democratic convention in New York, bikini-clad female oil wrestlers dropped their tops on a flatbed truck in front of Madison Square Garden.

At the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego, an escort service in search of delegate dollars changed its name to GOP: Good Old-Fashioned Pleasure.

While many escort agencies operating on the sly out of Manhattan hotels and apartment buildings welcome the influx of potential customers, others are wary of increased police attention.

"We're just being very secure," said a woman who runs an agency in midtown. "So we won't be taking on any out-of-towners."

NYPD spokesman Sgt. Kevin Hayes said, "Our quality-of-life and crime reduction efforts will remain intact."

Tracy Quan, author of the autobiographical novel, "Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl," said she worries cops will crack down on the most visible sex workers.

"I get depressed whenever there's a big political convention because I know the street girls are going to be hassled, arrested and treated like criminals," Quan said. "All in the name of 'cleaning up' our city for these people from out of town."

The players on the legal end of the city's sex industry have no such worries - and strip club owners are salivating at the prospect of crowds equipped with bunches of big bills.

Clubs have started booking private parties for delegates anxious to ogle topless beauties after a day of watching fully clothed politicians boast about family values.

"We have our show down to a science," said Lonnie Hanover, a spokesman for Scores, the upscale topless club. "We'll be full every night with what we think are the best-looking girls in the industry."

Hanover said Scores - which recently opened a branch just blocks from the Garden - has lined up several big-name entertainers for the convention. "But we don't reveal them," he said.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Slavery in Sudan

2004-06-21T13:56:19Z

JOHN EIBNER AND JOE MADISONUS holds key to peace in SudanBy John Eibner and Joe Madison | May 29, 2004SUDAN'S Islamist government and the secular Sudan People's Liberation Army have passed another milestone in a long and tortuous peace process. On Wednesday, Vice President Ali Osman Taha and SPLA Chairman Colonel John Garang signed the last of six protocols that collectively constitute a framework for a comprehensive peace agreement for Southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains. They are now poised to conclude negotiations by establishing modalities for implementation and international monitoring.On paper, the protocols appear to lay the foundation for an end to 21 years of apocalyptic civil war between successive Arab-Muslim-dominated governments and the predominantly black, non-Muslim rebels of Southern Sudan. The South is due to receive autonomous, Shariah-free government during a six-year interim period. Free elections are scheduled within three years. Southern Sudan is promised a referendum on independence at the end of that period.The greatest beneficiary of peace should be the South. There, the war assumed genocidal proportions: Over two million black non-Muslims perished, over four million were displaced, and tens of thousands enslaved. For Southern Sudan, the protocols open a door to economic development and self-determination. They also provide the North with a historic opportunity to free itself from a destructive jihad declared against restive non-Muslim communities.The Bush administration deserves credit for creating conditions for a serious peace process. Despite a parade of initiatives over the years, no significant progress had been made until 2001 when President Bush appointed former Senator John Danforth as special envoy. Congress also played a crucial role. With broad bipartisan support, it passed the Sudan Peace Act in 2002. This legislation identified Sudan's government as the perpetrator of acts of "genocide" and gave the president the carrots and sticks he needed to ensure progress.The key question now is whether the six protocols will lead to stability, or become, like the Oslo Accords, a byword for failed diplomacy. The biggest obstacle to success is the belief of Northern Sudan's ruling class in its manifest destiny to Islamize and Arabize the multicultural country. Cultural and religious assimilation in Sudan is the legacy of 1,300 years of Arab colonialism and has been pursued by successive governments since independence in 1956. General Bashir's dictatorship promotes Islamization and Arabization in the context of a totalitarian ideology of jihad. Fundamental ideological change in Khartoum is a precondition of sustainable peace.Khartoum's war against Muslim black African tribes in Darfur demonstrates its lack of commitment to peace. Since the end of last year, government offensives have displaced over one million civilians, and have resulted in the death of tens of thousands. Captive women and children are subjected to ritual gang-rape. UN officials now use terms such as "war crimes," "crimes against humanity," "reign of terror," and "ethnic cleansing" to describe the deeds of Bashir's troops.The continuing enslavement of tens of thousands of black non-Muslims and Khartoum's persistent denial of this "crime against humanity" is further indication that institutionalized racism and religious bigotry have not been overcome. In December 2002, Danforth identified the eradication of slavery as vital. Yet Khartoum has made little progress in facilitating the liberation of slaves -- despite having received millions of US dollars from the international community for that purpose.In the South, the greatest long-term danger to peace comes from the possibility of nonaccountable government, a breakdown of the fragile institutional and economic infrastructure, and a descent into tribalism. Khartoum expects this and is prepared to exploit the poverty of the South, using its immense power of patronage over key Southern politicians and tribal militias -- to undermine the peace process, especially future implementation of the right of self-determination.If these enormous obstacles to a lasting peace are overcome, it will be because of continuing US engagement. The Bush administration must compel Khartoum to end all campaigns of terror. It should also advance representative and secular constitutional government, in accordance with Bush's declared commitment to encourage democracy. As long as Sudan's pro-democracy movement and substantial religious and ethnic minorities are marginalized, peace will be very fragile indeed.President Bush should be prepared to employ throughout the interim period the punitive measures provided by the Sudan Peace Act to ensure that both sides honor their word. The eradication of slavery will require an effective monitoring mechanism at the State Department. Without a strong US commitment to guarantee the six protocols, a lasting peace in Sudan is likely to prove illusory.John Eibner, a member of the human rights organization Christian Solidarity International, and Joe Madison, a Washington-based syndicated radio commentator, are co-founders of the Sudan Campaign coalition.

© Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

posted in Anti-Slavery - 8 replies

Japan put on sex-trade watch list

2004-06-15T19:52:07Z

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Japan has thousands of victims of sexual slavery and is on a new U.S. "watch list" for failing to do more against the trafficking of humans by the underworld, a report released by the U.S. State Department says.

Japan "has a huge problem with slavery, particularly sex slavery, a tremendous gap between the size of the problem and the resources and efforts devoted to addressing the problem," senior State Department adviser John Miller said Monday.

Miller told reporters that he visited Japan, and "I found only two small shelters, each with eight to 10 beds."

He also criticized Japan for prosecutions that "did not appear to be a great effort" and said sentences were "relatively light" for people convicted of "sex tourism" there.

But Miller said Japan appears to be gearing up to make inroads against the problem.

Mexico, too, is among prominent U.S. allies cited in the 2004 "Trafficking in Persons Report."

"Reliable estimates point to 16,000-20,000" child sex victims in Mexico, "largely in border, urban, and tourist areas," the report finds.

Miller blamed "uneven law enforcement," but said top Mexican officials have recently made promises to fight such trafficking.

Japan and Mexico are among 140 countries that the 274-page report divided into four levels of compliance with the Trafficking Victims Reauthorization Act of 2003:

Tier 1: "Countries whose governments fully comply with the act's minimum standards."

Tier 2: "Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the act's minimum standards but are making significant progress to bring themselves into compliance with those standards."

Tier 3: "Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so."

This year's list includes 42 countries classified under a new category, called a "Tier 2 Watch List." Its definition is the same as Tier 2's, with these additions:

"The absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing; or

"There is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or

"The determination that a country is making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with minimum standards was based on commitments by the country to take additional future steps over the next year."

Japan and Mexico fall under the new category, created to warn countries that are falling short in their efforts to fight criminal activity that can include forced prostitution, labor camps, and child soldiers.

Each year, 600,000 to 800,000 people -- most of them women and children -- are transported illegally across international boundaries, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said.

Human trafficking may "very well" help finance terrorist activity, he told reporters when presenting the report. He left without taking questions.

Asked for evidence to support Powell's comment on a possible link to terrorism, Miller said, "I have no specific documentation that I can give you. This is largely organized crime activity, and it would not surprise me to find links to terrorism."

This is the fourth annual report prepared in response to a congressional mandate through the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.

It surveys countries where human trafficking has been documented as a significant problem -- meaning at least 100 victims have been reported.

'Progress, not sanctions'
"This does not mean that countries that are not mentioned do not have a slavery problem," Miller said. "It just means we do not have the information on such countries to establish 100 victims."

The 10 countries in Tier 3 are: Bangladesh, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Cuba, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Guyana, North Korea, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Venezuela.

Moving out of Tier 3 status were Belize, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Greece, Kazakhstan, Surinam, Turkey and Uzbekistan.

Though inclusion in Tier 3 brings the possibility of losses of certain kinds of U.S. aid, "the purpose of this report is not sanctions, it is to get progress," Miller said.

"Twenty-first century slavery is a story of evil, but it's also a story of hope, hope for all who seek to abolish slavery," he said.

"While there is so much more to do, governments are increasingly taking steps to help victims and jail the traffickers."

Some 16,000 people are trafficked into the United States, according to figures kept separately by the Justice Department.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Slavery in America

2004-06-02T02:59:12Z

Yahoo! News Wed, May 19, 2004
Search for Advanced
America Has Human Trafficking Crisis

Wed May 19,10:58 AM ET

Add World - AP to My Yahoo!

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - As many as 17,500 people each year are brought to the United States by human traffickers who trap them in slavery-like conditions for forced sex, sweatshop labor and domestic servitude, the Justice Department (news - web sites) reported Tuesday.

AP Photo

"In the United States, where slavery was outlawed nationally more than 130 years ago, this tragic phenomenon should no longer exist. Yet it does," the Justice Department said in a report to Congress.

In separate testimony on Capitol Hill, a top Homeland Security Department official estimated that human smuggling and trafficking generate some $9.5 billion worldwide each year for criminal organizations that also deal in illicit drugs, weapons and money laundering.

"These untraced profits feed organized crime activities," John Torres, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told a House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration.

Torres also said that terrorists could use the same smuggling networks "to gain entry to the United States to carry out their own destructive schemes."

A law passed by Congress in 2000 created a range of new crimes prosecutors could use to bring charges against human traffickers. Using that law, the Justice Department as of April 2004 had 153 open investigations, double the number as the same point in 2001.

From January 2001 through mid-May of this year, prosecutors have charged 149 individuals in trafficking cases and won 94 convictions or guilty pleas, about twice the number recorded over the previous three years, according to the report. The number of prosecutions since 2001 represents a threefold increase over the three previous years.

R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the Justice Department hoped to increase prosecutions in the coming months by focusing resources on selected cities and joining forces with state and local police. Philadelphia, Phoenix, Atlanta and Tampa, Fla., are the first four cities getting intensified anti-trafficking attention.

"While we're gratified that we've tripled prosecutions, we need to do more. And we are doing more," Acosta said.

Some recent examples:

_Seven people pleaded guilty in 2003 in south Texas to charges they brought women across the Mexican border to trailer homes where they were forced to cook, clean and submit to rape. The ringleader, Juan Carlos Soto, was sentenced to 23 years in prison and the women were paid restitution.

_Two people pleaded guilty and one was convicted of illegally bringing more than 250 Vietnamese and Chinese women to work as sewing machine operators in an American Samoa garment factory. The women experienced food deprivation, beatings, physical restraint and were forced to live in guarded barracks. The main defendant, Kil Soo Lee, faces a June sentencing date.

_Ramiro Ramos was sentenced in March to 180 months in prison for illegally transporting Mexican workers to fruit harvesting fields in Florida, where the victims were threatened with beating and death if they tried to leave and were kept under constant surveillance.

The Justice Department report estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are victims of human trafficking each year in the United States. About two-thirds of the cases prosecuted involve prostitution or sex slavery, with most of the rest involving forced labor.

The report also says that more than $8 million in Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Department grants have been awarded to provide victims' services such as temporary housing, transportation, legal assistance and education. The agency also has certified 448 victims since 2000 for its refugee resettlement program.

___

posted in Anti-Slavery - 0 replies

U.S. Slavery Report

2004-05-28T22:01:14Z

More 17,000 people victims of human trafficking in U.S., report says

Associated Press
Published Monday, May 24, 2004

WASHINGTON - As many as 17,500 people each year are brought to the United States by human traffickers who trap them in slavery-like conditions for forced sex, sweatshop labor and domestic servitude, the Justice Department reported Tuesday.

"In the United States, where slavery was outlawed nationally more than 130 years ago, this tragic phenomenon should no longer exist. Yet it does," the Justice Department said in a report to Congress.

In separate testimony on Capitol Hill, a top Homeland Security Department official estimated that human smuggling and trafficking generate some $9.5 billion worldwide each year for criminal organizations that also deal in illicit drugs, weapons and money laundering.

"These untraced profits feed organized crime activities," John Torres, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told a House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration.

Torres also said that terrorists could use the same smuggling networks "to gain entry to the United States to carry out their own destructive schemes."

A law passed by Congress in 2000 created a range of new crimes prosecutors could use to bring charges against human traffickers. Using that law, the Justice Department as of April 2004 had 153 open investigations, double the number as the same point in 2001.

From January 2001 through mid-May of this year, prosecutors have charged 149 individuals in trafficking cases and won 94 convictions or guilty pleas, about twice the number recorded over the previous three years, according to the report. The number of prosecutions since 2001 represents a threefold increase over the three previous years.

R. Alexander Acosta, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said the Justice Department hoped to increase prosecutions in the coming months by focusing resources on selected cities and joining forces with state and local police. Philadelphia, Phoenix, Atlanta and Tampa, Fla., are the first four cities getting intensified anti-trafficking attention.

"While we're gratified that we've tripled prosecutions, we need to do more. And we are doing more," Acosta said.

Some recent examples:

- Seven people pleaded guilty in 2003 in south Texas to charges they brought women across the Mexican border to trailer homes where they were forced to cook, clean and submit to rape. The ringleader, Juan Carlos Soto, was sentenced to 23 years in prison and the women were paid restitution.

- Two people pleaded guilty and one was convicted of illegally bringing more than 250 Vietnamese and Chinese women to work as sewing machine operators in an American Samoa garment factory. The women experienced food deprivation, beatings, physical restraint and were forced to live in guarded barracks. The main defendant, Kil Soo Lee, faces a June sentencing date.

- Ramiro Ramos was sentenced in March to 180 months in prison for illegally transporting Mexican workers to fruit harvesting fields in Florida, where the victims were threatened with beating and death if they tried to leave and were kept under constant surveillance.

The Justice Department report estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 people are victims of human trafficking each year in the United States. About two-thirds of the cases prosecuted involve prostitution or sex slavery, with most of the rest involving forced labor.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply

Mexican Sex Slaves in California

2004-04-30T19:33:03Z

The Girls Next Door
The New York Times
Jan. 25, 2004
By PETER LANDESMAN
The house at 1212 1/2 West Front Street in Plainfield, N.J., is a conventional midcentury home with slate-gray siding, white trim and Victorian lines. When I stood in front of it on a breezy day in October, I could hear the cries of children from the playground of an elementary school around the corner. American flags fluttered from porches and windows. The neighborhood is a leafy, middle-class Anytown. The house is set back off the street, near two convenience stores and a gift shop. On the door of Superior Supermarket was pasted a sign issued by the Plainfield police: ''Safe neighborhoods save lives.'' The store's manager, who refused to tell me his
name, said he never noticed anything unusual about the house, and never heard anything. But ! David Miranda, the young man behind the counter of Westside Convenience, told me he saw girls from the house roughly once a week. ''They came in to buy candy and soda, then went back to the house,'' he said. The same girls rarely came twice, and they were all very young, Miranda said. They never asked for anything beyond what they were purchasing; they certainly never asked for help. Cars drove up to the house
all day; nice cars, all kinds of cars. Dozens of men came and went. ''But no one here knew what was really going on,'' Miranda said. And no one ever asked. On a tip, the Plainfield police raided the house in February 2002, expecting to find illegal aliens working an underground brothel. What the police found
were four girls between the ages of 14 and 17. They were all Mexican nationals without documentation. But they weren't prostitutes; they were sex slaves. The distinction is important: these girls weren't working for profit or a paycheck. They were captives to the traffickers and keepers who controlled their every move. ''I consider myself hardened,'' Mark J. Kelly,
now a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security), told me recently. ''I spent time in the Marine Corps. But seeing some of the stuff I saw, then heard about, from those girls was a difficult, eye-opening experience.'' The police found a squalid, land-based equivalent of a 19th-century slave
ship, with rancid, doorless bathrooms; bare, putrid mattresses; and a stash of penicillin, ''morning after'' pills and misoprostol, an antiulcer medication that can induce abortion. The girls were pale, exhausted and malnourished. It turned out that 1212 1/2 West Front Street was one of what law-enforcement officials say are dozens of active stash houses and apartments in the New York metropolitan area -- mirroring hundreds more in
other major cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago -- where under-age girls and young women from dozens of countries are trafficked and held captive. Most of them -- whether they started out in Eastern Europe or Latin America -- are taken to the United States through Mexico. Some of them have been baited by promises of legitimate jobs and a better life in America;
many have been abducted; others have been bought from or abandoned by their impoverished families. Because of the porousness of the U.S.-Mexico border and the criminal
networks that traverse it, the towns and cities along that border have become the main staging area in an illicit and barbaric industry, whose ''products'' are women and girls. On both sides of the border, they are rented out for sex for as little as 15 minutes at a time, dozens of times a
day. Sometimes they are sold outright to other traffickers and sex rings, victims and experts say. These sex slaves earn no money, there is nothing voluntary about what they do and if they try to escape they are often beaten and sometimes killed.

posted in Anti-Slavery - 6 replies

Scientific American covered Modern Slavery 4/2002

2004-04-28T21:03:38Z

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0005F839-CC90-1CC6-B4A8809EC588EEDF&sc=I100322

posted in Anti-Slavery - 1 reply