Human Trafficking: A Very Political Issue

International Organizations have recently met to discuss the problems in combating human trafficking. It still seems cultural differences are holding back the progress of fighting modern day slavery. Different countries have different definitions of what it means to be exploited, of what it means to be trafficked. Instead of being able to go after the perpetrators of exploitation, no matter the form of the exploitation, international organizations and governments around the world still fight over the wording of the laws, and the almost non-existent statistics that are so difficult to determine.

A quote from this article that sums up the absurdity of these quarrels is from Richard Danziger, head of the Anti-Trafficking Unit for the International Organisation for Migration. He  stated, “Just about any woman who came from North Africa to Europe has been abused in some way. Maybe she was not trafficked, but should that make a difference?”

After all is said and done, just how much violence and exploitation should attorneys, non-profits and international organizations have to prove in order for human rights to be observed? Another quote that sums this up, “But human rights can often be the last consideration of states that ‘identify the mass of migrant workers as the threat,’ Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, judge at the European Commission (the executive arm of the EU) told participants. “

EUROPE: Victims of Trafficking Need More than Words
By Zoltán Dujisin–IPS

PALERMO, Italy, May 25 (IPS) – A flawed political and economic order that has failed to create effective migration policies is behind the rise of trafficking in persons and the difficulties in tackling it effectively, leading campaigners say.

“It’s the same greed, the same lack of regulation, the same lack of government action that is causing forced labour and that caused the global financial crisis,” Roger Plant, head of the special action programme to combat forced labour at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) told an International Conference on Trafficking in Persons in Palermo, Italy.

The conference, organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) May 21-22 assessed progress made ten years after the United Nations adopted the Palermo Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and its two protocols on trafficking and smuggling.

The protocols have been ratified by more than 100 countries, and have provided many valuable juridical instruments, but there is poor implementation and insufficient data collection by individual states, making monitoring by international organisations arduous.

“We have national legislations, ratification, shelters, national action plans, but any impact?” Richard Danzinger, head of the IOM’s counter-trafficking unit asked the audience. “We have no clear numbers, but estimates haven’t changed, and the definition of trafficking is so complex that it can be interpreted in many ways, depending on government policies or ideology.”

Hampering cooperation are also different legal cultures that have led to disagreement over key concepts of exploitation, trafficking or smuggling.

Danziger went so far as to question the relevance of distinguishing between victims of trafficking and migrants in general. “Just about any woman who came from North Africa to Europe has been abused in some way. Maybe she was not trafficked, but should that make a difference?” he asked.

Some claimed that the Palermo Protocols had helped. “Before the Protocols the ILO was only looking at the issue of forced labour imposed by states, while we know that 80 percent of forced labour is done by private interests,” Plant told the conference.

According to the ILO, 12.3 million people are in forced labour worldwide. The absence of a free employment relationship means yearly losses of 20 billion dollars for the victims.

Participants generally agreed that progress had not been spectacular, but there is a long way to go to find consensus on the most effective approach to tackling trafficking.

“You can’t solve these problems in one country, you have countries of origin, transit, and destination that should work together,” Peter Schatzer, IOM’s Director of the Regional Office for the Mediterranean told IPS.

“It is not always political will that is missing,” he said. “Problems with implementation are manifold; sometimes it is disorganisation, some time it is traffickers themselves adapting to legislation voted in various countries, sometimes it is also lack of in-depth international cooperation.”

Plant said that cooperation is required from more than just governments. “We need to have trade unions, governments and businesses working together to address forced labour,” he said. And that is something increasingly realistic as multinationals become “worried about forced labour entering their chain of production and causing them damage.”

Speaking to IPS, Plant said trade unions could play a role in combating forced labour. “If these workers could actually get protection from the trade unions in the destination country, this would be a very important way of averting the risk of forced labour,” he said.

Calls were also made to reform migration policy. “Organised crime did not invent trafficking. Traffickers occupy the space created by the countries’ policies,” John Davis, research fellow at the Sussex Centre for Migration Research told IPS.

“The reason we have trafficking is because people who have a migration desire can’t get a visa,” he said. “As we have created more and more obstacles, we create the need for a more complex criminality.”

Traffickers have exploited globalisation, taking advantage of easy mobility, communication technology and money transfers to create the fastest growing criminal industry in the world.

Many believe trafficking is the most lucrative form of organised crime after drug and arms trading, and survives because there are few cases of prosecution against traffickers, and because of occasional complicity of authorities.

“It’s not rare to find public order forces that are very much strained, underpaid, and therefore subject to corruption, as trafficking is very lucrative,” Schatzer told IPS.

Mariana Katzarova, adviser on trafficking at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, believes the best way to go is to focus on human rights. “Only well-protected victims can cooperate in the prosecution of traffickers,” she said.

But human rights can often be the last consideration of states that “identify the mass of migrant workers as the threat,” Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, judge at the European Commission (the executive arm of the EU) told participants.

One worrying signal comes from the EU itself, where assistance has only been provided to 3,000 victims since the Palermo protocols were born. “If this is the situation in the EU, where there are actually conditions to support victims, we have a deep problem at hand,” said Giammarinaro. (END/2009)

U.S. Citizens Trafficked in Kansas?

It is true. It seems there are more and more domestic minors falling prey to the lures of pimps in the Wichita area. This article confirms just how easy it is for young girls to be coerced into these prostitution rings. The girls are running away from  a family life they feel is less than desirable, they do not know what they will find when they leave home, but they feel it can not be worse than what is at home.

All the pimp has to do is offer food, a place to sleep, and some companionship, and he has caught her. These prostitution rings are making loads of money on the porn industry, as well as the prostitution of underage girls in the Wichita area. The word is out: selling young girls is lucrative, even more lucrative than the drug trade. Let’s hope that attitudes are changing within law enforcement. The pimps are the criminals, not the young women.

Police investigating sex trafficking in Wichita

Eds: UPDATES throughout with details, quotes.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police say the cases of teenage girls being forced into sexual slavery are increasing in the city.

Police and social workers have investigated four such cases this year and they suspect there are many other young girls at risk. They blame the increase on street gangs, who particularly exploit runaways and homeless children. They believe that 300 to 400 Wichita-area children every year are at risk of becoming victims of sexual exploitation.

Mike Nagy, an officer with the Wichita-Sedgwick County Exploited and Missing Child Unit, says gangs trade and sell children like slaves. But the crimes are hard to investigate because the victims often are brainwashed or threatened, and most won’t testify.

“They need to know that we have no intention of arresting or prosecuting them,” said Kent Bauman, an EMCU officer. “Our purpose when we work these cases is to go after the pimps and gangs who are harming these children.”

The extent of the problem, which began growing worse in the past few years, is more extensive than police had originally thought.

The gangs lure the children with food, money, shelter and romance, police said. Gang members train their victims in sex acts, often using pornographic movies as “training films.”

The victims then are either forced into the local sex trade or trafficked on the Internet or to larger cities., police said.

Social worker Karen Countryman-Roswurm, who has studied the problem and interviewed hundreds of victims, said the pimps can make hundreds of thousands of dollars off a single child.

Street gangs have learned that sex trafficking is safer and more lucrative than dealing in guns or drugs, Bauman said.

The gangs also are making a lot of money from the porn industry, Countryman-Roswurm said. The customers who are creating a demand for child pornography also should be held accountable, she said.

“Every time they buy a pornographic film or pay for sex, they are helping create demand for a crime where children are exploited,” she said.

And while the victims are children from every race and social level, Countryman-Roswurm said, most of the customers come from the same group.

“The people who create the demand and provide the cash for the sex trade are mostly white, middle-aged, middle- or upper-income men,” she said. “We have to stop arresting the victims and arrest instead the buyer and seller.”

Nagy said most of the local victims are drawn from runaways who “couch surf” from house to house looking for a place to stay, or are homeless and live on the local streets. Because of that, they are easy targets, he said.

“A guy drives up beside you and asks if you need a place to stay,” Nagy said. “They offer money, they buy them food and clothes, and these kids are feeling hungry and vulnerable.”

Some of the pimps offer friendship or even romance that draws young victims in.

“The girls involved think the guy wants to be her boyfriend,” said Anne Lund, a social worker investigator with the EMCU.

The girls think they’re in love, but to the pimps, it’s just business.

“It is really tough to talk some of these girls out of it,” Lund said.

Police say they have frequent contact with runaways who seem defiant about their parents, but have no idea about what they’ll face on the streets.

“A lot of these runaway children know what they are running away from,” Nagy said, “but most of them have no idea what they are running to.”

Social workers and law enforcement officers will gather Tuesday at a conference titled “Community Action to End Domestic Sexual Exploitation” to coordinate a stronger response to the problem.

——

Information from: The Wichita Eagle, http://www.kansas.com

The Slave Next Door Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter

“The Slave Next Door” could prove to be THE awareness tool needed to prove that slavery still exists in our seemingly calm and innocent American suburbs. It will help open the eyes of Americans who never look twice at the activities of their neighbors. It will also help all people see that every single product we buy and eat has been made or grown and produced somewhere by someone and that there is a connection between all of us. Read on…

The Slave Next Door exposes human trafficking and slavery in America today

May 25, 10:46 AM

Marilee Vergati

-Dallas Events Examiner

Many Americans are unaware that slave labor is a part of the world economy and products we buy are enabling human rights violations. As we blissfully go about wearing our cotton T-shirts, drinking our cups of coffee with sugar while walking across our woven rugs, we unwittingly fuel these illegal activities. The new book the “The Slave Next Door” brings another frightening dimension to these crimes. This is not just a tragedy occurring in remote parts of the world, unfortunately human trafficking and slavery is now taking place in the United States. The abuse is happening next door, in our office buildings, in nearby restaurants or to street
kids attempting to sell cheap merchandise to a passerby. Slaves in America are hidden in
plain sight.

According to a U.S. State Department study, some 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked in the U.S. each year. Some arrive over the Canadian and Mexican borders while others fly here with real or forged papers. Many come believing they will have a better way of life. They go into debt with unscrupulous people who force them into bondage. Unable to leave they are threatened into submission through violence. Native-born Americans are kidnapped and some sources, including the federal government, estimate hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens are at risk. This exploitive industry lives in the shadows making it even more difficult to discover and
help the victims.

“The Slave Next Door” creates awareness that 27 million worldwide are enslaved and human trafficking and bondage in America is growing at an alarming rate. Authors Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter’s book is a call to action telling private citizens what they can do to eradicate these crimes.

“Most Americans believe that slavery in our country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. They are wrong. As Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter document in this excellent volume, human bondage is a reality for thousands of children, women and men living in the United States. The Slave Next Door exposes slavery in today’s America in all its forms, and sounds a call to arms to government, corporations, and private citizens alike.”
—Kerry Kennedy, Founder, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights

Exploitation of the Weakest

Some things never change. When will our societies take care of those that need help the most, instead of exploiting them?

Police free 32 mentally-handicapped from forced labor, arrest 10 suspects

www.chinaview.cn 2009-05-22 11:54:34

HEFEI, May 22 (Xinhua) — Police in east China’s Anhui Province have arrested 10 suspects for allegedly beating and forcing 32 mentally-handicapped people working in brick kilns in slave-like conditions. Gao Jie, director of the Jieshou Public Security Bureau, said Friday that 80 police raided the kilns in Jeishou City on April 28and freed the victims. “All of them are mentally handicapped people aged between 25 and 45. Few of them can tell where they were from,” said Gao. He said the police helped 19 of them find their homes, and the remaining 13 had been temporarily sheltered in a welfare house in Jieshou, waiting for the families to pick them up. “We have put their photographs on the bureau’s website. Maybe their relatives are looking for them, and they may find the information on the Internet,” said Gao. Among the 10 suspects are brick kiln owner Zhang and nine of his foremen. Police say the people were forced into hard labor for more than10 hours a day without pay. Some of them were found to have been beaten. Gao said police were still investigating the case, looking for evidence of the possible trafficking of mentally handicapped people. “We have sent detectives to Shandong to continue the investigation, as the case here will be transferred to the procuratorate next week,” said Gao. Zhang told police he “bought” the laborers from neighboring Shandong Province. “Zhang said he bought them for 200 to 300 yuan each from a taxi driver, who frequently sold mentally handicapped people to him. The driver claimed that he found these people roaming on street,” said Gao. The workers came from Anhui, Shandong, Henan, Hunan, Hubei and other provinces. Jieshou, 400 km north of Anhui’s capital of Hefei, is on the border of Anhui and Henan provinces. Zhang bought the handicapped people from Shandong, and chose the border region to run the kiln to evade police, said Gao, adding the kilns began operating last month. Zhang Junjie, a spokesman of the city government of Jieshou, said the government would do its utmost to care for the handicapped sheltered in the welfare house before their relatives came to pick them up. Another forced-labor scandal made headlines in 2007, when a brick kiln boss in northern Shanxi Province was found to have forced 1,340 people to work, 367 of whom were mentally handicapped. In the wake of the scandal, 95 officials in the province were punished, and 29 brick kiln bosses, foremen, supervisors and other workers were tried by courts in seven separate cases. The principal was given the death penalty and the others received jail terms.

Editor: An

Europe vs. The U.S.: Can we do better?

After listening to a report on Public Radio International about trafficking victims from Nigeria found in Spain, I began to wonder whether or not our system of protection here in the U.S. could live up to that in Europe, especially in Italy and Spain. Italy has a wonderful system that truly offers every protection for its survivors. I believe here in the U.S. we are so concerned with prosecutions and getting the survivor to help with the case that we forget about the issues of human rights and protection. What do you think?

Listen to the PRI clip:  http://www.theworld.org/node/26500

New Attitudes in Domestic Trafficking

Young girls are becoming more and more accustom to the idea of using their sexuality to get what they want. Today, watching The View,  Sharlene Azam was on talking about her new book called “Oral Sex is the New Goodnight Kiss”. The book describes her findings on how high school and junior high girls consider sexual acts an easy way of getting money or clothes or even getting their homework done for them.

Now, who knows how long this attitude has been around, but we do know that young girls have been becoming more and more vulnerable to this outcome for years and years. For example, we know young girls have been running away from their homes in search of a place where they feel accepted for decades now. We also know that young girls, once they have run away,  have been coerced into prostitution and have been controlled by pimps for decades and decades. It isn’t until recent years that there is a name for it: human trafficking, or more specifically sex trafficking of domestic minors. These girls were always labeled, the “bad girls” from troubled homes and they had to be punished in order to get their lives back in order. Well, we are only now beginning to see a change in this attitude.

Now there is a real push for the US Government to take more notice of domestic victims of trafficking and their needs. No longer should they be the criminal, but worthy of care and treatment to re-enter society, obtain an education and given help to get them on their feet again. Local police are beginning to realize that they play a huge role in stopping these pimps and johns from victimizing troubled girls. They are slowly realizing that the girls are not the criminals.

The main problem now is enforcing the new laws, and actually establishing an anti-human trafficking law at the local level in EVERY state. Below is an article that stresses this point.

16 Year Old Forced Into Sex Trade

Reported by: Andrew Pereira
Email: apereira@khon.com
Last Update: 5/21 6:30 pm

Honolulu police arrested three men Wednesday night accused of forcing a 16 year old runaway into the sex trade.

Investigators say the female victim was picked up December 20 of last year and forced to work as a prostitute at various locations around the island.  The victim’s services were advertised on the popular internet website craigslist.com.

Police say a 19 year old Halawa man acted as the girl’s pimp and sexually assaulted her.  He faces charges of promoting prostitution as well as sex assault in the second and fourth degree.

Two other men, both 20, face various of drug charges.  Investigators say they acted as security and escorts during the prostitution activity.  Charges against all three suspects were pending as of Thursday evening.

Experts say young girls forced into the sex trade are often runaways who begin working the streets on their own, but are quickly picked up by local pimps.

“A pimp can very easily manipulate a child by making that child fall in love with him,” said Kathryn Xian, spokesperson for The Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery, or P.A.S.S., an organization which educates lawmakers and the public about human trafficking.

Xian says young girls are often “groomed” by their pimps, a process that involves coercion and manipulation, but quickly manifests into threats and physical violence.

“(It’s) tantamount to military torture.  Every streetwalker out in Waikiki including the children has pimps because they’re very territorial and they want to be able to control their commodities; control the flow of money.”

Pimps may recruit girls who live in Hawaii or bring them into the islands from all corners of the country.

“We see a huge influx every year; every season in girls coming from out of state,” said Xian.

P.A.S.S. believes federal authorities do an effective job at combating human traffickers, but Xian says more help is needed at the state level.

“There’s no state statute that highlights human trafficking as a crime and that makes it harder for local law enforcement to prosecute or to arrest these guys.”

Andrew may be reached at ph. 368-7273.

The website for the Pacific Alliance to Stop Slavery: http://www.traffickjamming.org/

Exploitation in North Texas

In the small town of Cactus, Texas, a meat packing plant has been abusing laborers rights for almost a decade now. The plant has been investigated, there have been raids by ICE to initiate deportation processes in the past few years. Still, the meat packing plant does not seem to change its ways. Human trafficking and labor exploitation seems to keep occurring and causing severe social problems in the town of Cactus. TRLA will be conducting its own investigations, but please read about the situation in order to understand how serious the problem is, and how close to home the issue of labor trafficking may come.

The following article was investigated by the Dallas Morning News. It is from a few years ago, but gives a very good idea of what is still going on in this wild west town.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/longterm/stories/cactus.4e62370.html

MTV EXIT in Philippines

MTV Rages Against Human Exploitation and Trafficking

The Business Mirror, Online Space

Tuesday, 19 May

THE MTV Exit Campaign and MTV Philippines recently announced the launch of a nationwide initiative to fight human trafficking through a series of concerts and TV programs, kicking off on May 22 with MTV Exit Live in Manila, a free concert at the Mall of Asia Concert Grounds. MTV Exit (as in End Exploitation and Trafficking) is produced by the MTV Europe Foundation, in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).MTV Exit Live in Manila will feature performances from some of the Philippines’ top home-grown artists, including Christian Bautista, Gary Valenciano, Bamboo, Pochoy Labog, Sponge Cola, Kjwan, Callalily, Pupil, Duster, Kitchie Nadal, Rico Blanco, Itchyworms, Kamikazee, Moymoy Palaboy and Parokya ni Edgar. All have committed their support to fight human trafficking by taking part in the concert. The event will be hosted by MTV VJ Kat Alano and actor Epi Quizon. Bautista narrated the antitrafficking documentary Traffic: An MTV Exit Special and is the MTV Exit campaign’s ambassador in the Philippines.

To support the concert and the campaign, a group of antitrafficking organizations, headed by the Visayan Forum Foundation, will march from Roxas Boulevard to the concert grounds. The march will begin at 2 pm and reach the Mall of Asia shortly before the 6 pm concert begins. Approximately 5,000 people are expected to take part. These groups will disseminate important information about human trafficking and its prevention to concertgoers.

The UN estimates that at any one time there are 2.5 million trafficking victims in the world, with the majority of these in the Asia-Pacific. Human trafficking is the second-largest illegal trade after drugs, with criminal traffickers earning over $10 billion every year through the buying and selling of human beings. Victims are often young men and women—MTV’s demographic—who are guilty only of wanting a better life.

“I am incredibly proud to perform at this important concert,” Bautista said. “I hope that through my music and involvement in this event and the MTV Exit campaign, millions of people learn about this tragic form of slavery.”

“The power and influence of music is a great force for change—by holding this concert tour across the Philippines we are harnessing this power; using it to inform and mobilize young people in the fight against trafficking,” said Simon Goff, MTV Exit’s director.

The concert will be broadcast on MTV Philippines and will include live footage, as well as key information about human trafficking. All MTV Exit television programming is produced rights-free and free of charge for all broadcasters and organizations.

For free tickets to this concert-for-a-cause event: www.mtvphil.com to win tickets; or visit any MTV Exit Redemption Booth at the SM Mall of Asia on or before May 22, from 10 am to 5 pm; or at the VFF/MTV Exit Redemption Booth on May 22 at the MOA Concert Grounds.

MTV Exit Live in Manila is presented by Mtvexit.org, USAID and VFF; copresented by GMA, Q Channel 11 and SM Mall of Asia, with special thanks to Armvet Printing Co., Padi’s Point and Fish & Co.

The official residence is The Manila Hotel, while the official media partner is BusinessMirror.

Genetics and Human Trafficking?

One of the most difficult challenges we face is developing a way to collect data on the number of victims there are– not only internationally, but even at a state-wide level. So, any new advancement in improving these measures is quite an achievement. The idea is that  DNA will help find victims of trafficking who have been tricked, kidnapped or coerced into slave labor. Will it work?

DNA-Prokids: Genetic identification against traffic in human beings

This release is available in Spanish.

DNA-Prokids (http://www.dna-prokids.org), an international project on human trafficking prevention and fight using genetic identification of victims and their relatives, was officially presented today, at the University of Granada (UGR) headquarters, in Spain.

Traffic in human beings is one of the most frequent and profitable crimes at the beginning of the 21st century. According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), approximately two million people are victims of human trafficking across the world. UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, stated recently that “trafficking in weapons, drugs and blood diamonds has long been on the UN agenda” and that now is the time to “add people to that list”.

Upon suggestion of the UGR Genetic Identification Laboratory, an international project for genetic identification of missing children and their families was set up in 2004. The goal was to not limit the scope of research to domestic crimes, but to spread results worldwide with the aim of boosting the international fight against human trafficking.

That was the start of DNA-Prokids, an initiative which has been praised by authorities and experts in genetic identification all over the world, and whose piloting experiences in countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Philippines and Indonesia are being extremely successful.

Goals

The Head of the UGR Genetic Identification Laboratory, Prof. José A. Lorente, stressed that DNA-Prokids, as a programme for genetic identification of human trafficking victims and their relatives, serves “a triple objective: to hamper traffic in human beings thanks to identification of victims; to use such identification to return victims to their families (reunification), and to gather information on the origins, the routes and the means of this crime (police intelligence), key elements for the work of police forces and judicial systems”.

To date, there is no other specific initiative aimed at missing children identification based upon systematic and automatic international cooperation through a single worldwide database. This is exactly the mission of DNA-Prokids: coordinating, from both a scientific and a legal perspective, genetic identification protocols, a goal which scientists and authorities from Brazil, China, Colombia, Dubai, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Spain, Thailand, USA or Venezuela have already expressed interest in.

DNA-Prokids is an initiative of the UGR Genetic Identification Laboratory, in cooperation with the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, in the USA, and with the contributions of financial institutions such as BBVA, Fundación Botín (Banco Santander) or CajaGRANADA and of Life Technologies (USA).

DNA-Prokids 1st International Conference

Next October, the Southern Spanish city of Granada will host DNA-Prokids 1st International Conference: genetic identification against children trafficking. Scientists, NGOs, international bodies, representatives of security forces and experts from judicial systems will gather in this meeting with the aim of creating an international alliance against children trafficking by making the most of new genetic identification techniques.

Reference: José Antonio Lorente Acosta. Phone: +34 958249928. E-mail: prokids@ugr.es
More info: http://www.dna-prokids.org

Changing the mindset in Canada

In Canada, the most vulnerable are sexually exploited, yet many do not seem to be able to connect the dots. The journalist in this article discusses why he believes decriminalizing prostitution will only bring more victimization. Will decriminalizing prostitution lower the demand for cheap sex or will it endanger those who are already the most vulnerable? How can society change its views on pornography and prostitution? I believe it must start with a few good men.

EXPLOITATION: About 90% of visible sex trade workers in Canada are aboriginal girls under age 18

Joe Matyas
London Free Press

May 20, 2009

Some Canadians have their “moral compasses screwed up” on the issues of pornography and prostitution, an RCMP officer who monitors human trafficking said in London yesterday.

“I’ve drawn a line in the sand on this and a lot of people don’t like it. I believe that when you see abuse, you have to take a strong stand.” — Author and journalist Victor Malarek.

If you use prostitutes or buy pornography, “you’re probably supporting human trafficking,” said retired superintendent Marty Van Doren.

And if you buy cheap knockoff products from abroad, you’re probably supporting human trafficking, too, Van Doren told participants in a one-day conference held by the Salvation Army.

Knockoffs are often made by poorly paid child labourers, sometimes sold into servitude, said Van Doren, human trafficking co-ordinator for Ontario division.

And make no mistake about it, most prostitutes are lured or forced into the life, he said.

“Are they victims? — yeah, absolutely,” Van Doren said.

The most vulnerable, economically challenged, socially dislocated women are often drawn into prostitution with promises of a better life, he said.

Instead, they find themselves abused and exploited by profiteers who beat them with “pimp sticks” (coat hangars) and other means, threaten them and sometimes brand them with lit cigarettes, scarring or tattoos, Van Doren said.

About 90% of visible sex trade workers in Canada are aboriginal girls under age 18, he said. “They’re sold like cattle and moved from city to city.”

Foreign women brought to Canada by sex merchants often enter the country illegally, he said. They don’t have identification papers, they can’t speak our language and they’re tightly controlled.

The United Nations estimates 10 million women, girls and boys are victims of the international sex trade, investigative journalist Victor Malarek, author of two books on the subject, told the conference.

An estimated 800,000 women a year are trafficked from country to country for sexual purposes, said Malarek.

Malarek, a Canadian newspaper and television journalist, has become a passionate defender of the victims of sex trafficking and a busy speaker on the subject.

“I’ve drawn a line in the sand on this and a lot of people don’t like it. I believe that when you see abuse, you have to take a strong stand.”

Malarek has called johns who buy sex and people soft on pornography “bozos” and “idiots.”

Pornography fuels prostitution and prostitution fuels the sex trade, he said.

Malarek opposes both decriminalizing prostitution and legalizing it.

Decriminalizing it would mean “it’s open season on women and children” for sexual exploitation, he said, and legalizing it hasn’t eliminated criminal activity in other countries.

Ruth Gillingham of the Salvation Army, a corrections and justice services worker who helped organize the one-day conference, said her work puts her in direct contact with sex trade workers.

“The majority are poor. They come from broken homes. Some have mental illnesses and drug and alcohol addictions.”

Joe Matyas is a Free Press reporter.