A Model to Follow

The following article gives an example of a human trafficking task force worthy of copying. Notice how it praises the efforts of joining together as teams consisting of all sectors: law enforcement, health care providers and social services providers, as well as outreach and legal services. The article praises outreach as a way of spreading awareness– even though the fruits of this awareness are not always felt right away, it is an imperative part of identifying victims and it does yield results.

Let’s start some outreach then!!!!

Lee County at forefront of slavery fight

By AMY BENNETT WILLIAMS • awilliams@news-press.com • June 28, 2009

In just four years, Lee County has become a national leader in the fight against slavery.

Those who battle the crime point to swift and effective law enforcement, wide and energetic outreach and enviable interagency cooperation.

“We’re light years ahead of other communities,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Molloy, who’s prosecuted 20 slavery and human trafficking cases throughout Southwest Florida over the past decade, freeing 50 victims. “Because of our united community efforts, we’re in a place most areas aspire to.”

Those efforts include a two-man team at the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, a multiagency task force and a new command center at Florida Gulf Coast University: The Esperanza Project.

“What’s happening at FGCU is electric – just electric,” Molloy said.

One of a scant handful of university-based human trafficking research centers in the country, it opened eight months ago with $100,000 in seed money from a federal anti-trafficking grant given to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.

The center’s name means “hope” in Spanish. It’s also the pseudonym of the 11-year-old girl whose enslavement in Cape Coral became a galvanizing force as Lee county’s first high-profile victim.

In 2005, the girl was discovered in Cape Coral, pregnant and bleeding. Born in Guatemala, she was sold to a man who brought her here and forced her into sexual and domestic slavery. She was repeatedly raped and beaten during her two-year captivity. Molloy eventually sent her captors to federal prison.

Her case sparked a wave of questions and self-examination among law enforcement and residents alike.

In short order, the Sanibel chapter of Zonta International, a service group, made human trafficking its signature cause.

The U.S. Department of Justice awarded the Lee County Sheriff’s Office a $450,000, three-year grant to combat human trafficking.

By the end of 2005, Molloy said authorities were working on more trafficking cases in Southwest Florida than many entire states see in a year.

He and a newly formed task force began spreading the word: Modern-day slaves may be young or old, immigrants or American-born.

They’re often imprisoned in squalid conditions. Beatings, rapes and stolen documents keep them in line. Many don’t speak English or know U.S. culture. They fear authorities.

Task force members have hit the streets, holding seminars and training educators, health care workers, emergency responders, students and ordinary people. They visit low-income neighborhoods, migrant camps and mobile home parks, talking to residents and passing out leaflets.

“It’s not a good task force – it’s a great task force,” Molloy said. “The fact that we’re getting reports from everyone from ministers to code inspectors shows just how high the level of community awareness is now.”

The Esperanza Project, which does such outreach as well, further strengthens the efforts, said project director and FGCU professor Johnny McGaha, founding chairman of its criminal justice program.

“Before, efforts were fragmented,” McGaha said. “The Esperanza Project consolidates them, bringing professionalism and credibility.”

McGaha also has high praise for Sgt. John Haberman and Deputy Michael Zaleski, who make up the Lee County Sheriff’s Office trafficking team.

“They are taking it very seriously and working closely with the Catholic Charities folks (who provide victim services),” McGaha said.

Neighborhood visits and leaflet passing might not seem critical, but John Bowe, author of the acclaimed “Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy,” said they can be effective tools.

“Anything that reaches out to victims and lets them know they have recourse – that’s huge because they’re often coming from countries that have no protections so they have no reason to think there’s protection here. A flier can be a tremendously powerful preventive measure,” he said.

Yet such measures don’t always immediately bear fruit. In a paper presented earlier this year: “Where are the Victims? The Credibility Gap in Human Trafficking Research,” McGaha and fellow FGCU professor Amanda Evans wrote: “Out of the 42 potential human trafficking cases referred to this task force in 2008, none were confirmed as true human trafficking cases.”

Paradoxically, that lack of victims points to the task force’s success, said co-chair Nola Theiss, who blogs on news-press.com.

“Traffickers are skilled businessmen. They understand their product, they know their market,” she said. “If Lee County becomes known as a place where it’s hard to do business, they’ll go elsewhere.”

And victims are indeed there, Theiss said. In fact, since the paper appeared, the sheriff’s office has rescued two more victims (details aren’t available because the case is open).

What makes fighting trafficking confounding is how difficult it is to find victims and prosecute their captors.

“(The U.S.) spends about about $23 million on this annually – that’s not much at all,” Theiss said. “Estimates are there are about 17,000 foreign-born trafficking victims alone and 17,000 homicide victims, and yet we solve 70 percent of the homicides and 1 percent of trafficking cases.”

Bowe said “it’s not at all unreasonable that it will take years to uncover – and even then, there’s a very small chance a case ever sees the light of day.”

The man in the No. 1 human trafficking job in Washington is Luis C. de Baca. The new ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons at the State Department promises trafficking will be a priority of the new administration as well – especially of Secretary of State Hilary Clinton.

Formerly with the Justice Department, de Baca and Molloy go way back.

“When you talk about all the success you’ve had down there,” de Baca said, “the one constant is Molloy.”

And Molloy is still hard at it.

“We’ve got seven slavery cases right now either in the investigation or the indictment phase,” he said.

“And we’ll have more arrests in the very near future,” de Baca added.

Building a Wall Won’t Work

The construction of the wall along the border will not stop people from trying to come into the US. It WILL make it more difficult and dangerous to come across. This will, in turn, increase the black market that facilitates human trafficking, or slavery. More identification fraud will occur, as more and more people will only be able to cross with proper documents to work in the US. More loan sharks will pop up to give migrants the money they need to cross the border. Finally, this will put more smugglers in the position of leading migrants into a slavery-like situation. Think about it……if smugglers turn into human traffickers, they will be able to cross more migrants into the US, (with the help of a good document forger), they will make more money, and do this quite easily, promising the migrant a seemingly legitimate job in the end. Smugglers will have to become more and more creative in order to get people across–this will create more intricate human trafficking schemes.

More human rights will be abused as smugglers try every way possible to get people across and to make money. The following article demonstrates this. The black market will only grow to service the demand of those who want to get across. Finally, more and more families will either be separated for longer periods of time, or will be put at a higher risk to be caught crossing the border illegally as they try to reunite with their families on the US side. This wall will only increase human trafficking, separate families and increase the dangers of crossing into the US.

What can the US do to reform immigration policy? How can they promote a more human rights based policy?

Smugglers Becoming More Creative

Marisela Chavez-Ramirez’s journey from Mexico ended when U.S. border officials found her and her 3-year-old daughter curled up in the gas tank of a Dodge Caravan.

A smuggler had squeezed the pair into the tank, accessible through the floor of the van, to try to sneak them through the San Ysidro Port of Entry south of San Diego. They were discovered after an inspection revealed that a second tank had been added to carry fuel.

“To see a child, with a baby bottle in its mouth, that was shocking,” said Adele Fasano, director of field operations for the San Diego district of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Smugglers and individual migrants have a long history of adapting their tactics to try to circumvent whatever barriers immigration officials put in their way. But they’ve shown more creativity in recent years as the government has launched repeated crackdowns along the frontier.

Fasano said there has been a spike in California in cases where smugglers place women and children in small compartments in vehicles to drive them across the border. Migrants have also been found inside washing machines and sewn into car seats.

Arizona-based agents also have found smugglers who disguised their vehicles to look like TV news trucks or U.S. Border Patrol vehicles. A fake FedEx truck has even been used to haul migrants.

In Texas, authorities once found a man rolling down a street disguised as a tumbleweed. People have also tried attaching cow hoofs to their feet to disguise their footprints.

“The only problem with that is there aren’t too many two-legged cows,” said Doug Mosier, spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas.

More women and children are being apprehended because migrants are no longer doing much seasonal work in the United States, said Kat Rodriguez, of the Tucson-based human rights group Derechos Humanos.

Because of the expense and danger, rather than traveling back to Mexico after working, the men now stay here. Their wives and children travel north to join them.

“It is a simple fact of wanting to be with their families,” Rodriguez said. “Our policies have caused separation of loved ones.”

The National Border Patrol Museum in El Paso displays many artifacts from botched crossing attempts, like the cow-hoof shoes, carpet-covered sandals, and a boat made from truck hoods. Click Here to Customize

“Desperate people are very ingenious and very clever, and I am quite often surprised at the complexity and the thought behind devising these things,” said museum curator Brenda Tisdale. “Sometimes my heart is broken because they resort to things that lead them to be injured, stranded or dead by the smugglers. You have to feel compassion for people who are driven to these measures.”

Officials credit their operations for the changing smuggling techniques.

Hundreds of additional agents have been sent to Arizona, for example, to try to stop the hundreds of thousands of migrants who have made this state the most active illegal crossing point on the southern border.

“It is getting a lot more difficult for them to come across the border,” said Andrea Zortman, a Border Patrol spokeswoman in Arizona. “They are trying to disguise vehicles, blend in with ranchers, hide footprints. We are seeing their frustration.”

In two separate cases in January, a total of 29 illegal immigrants were found in dump trucks in southwestern Arizona, said Border Patrol spokesman Joe Brigman. The same month, he said, another 46 people were found hiding inside plywood compartments within bales of hay on two tractor-trailers.

The flood of illegal immigrants has prompted the creation of the Minuteman Project, in which volunteers fan out across 23 miles of the San Pedro Valley to watch the border and report any illegal activity to federal agents.

Vehicles are now the favored smuggling method for illegal immigrants traveling to California, immigration officials said. Devices such as the government’s biometric screening system, which scans visitor’s faces, have made it hard to use fake identification cards to gain entry, Fasano said.

“The creativity is basically without bounds,” Fasano said.

You can watch this story on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWyM4uJKb9c&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fen.terra.com%2Flifestyle%2Farticles%2Fhtml%2Fhof5975.htm&feature=player_embedded

A Good Way to Spend Your Money

Look at this website to see what charities are out there that give money to children’s rights.

Lots to Say Baby Announces 4 Percent of All Pacifier Sales Will be Donated to Fight Childhood Poverty, Drug Use and Human Trafficking

Lots to Say Baby donates 4% of all pacifier sales to support children’s charities arround the world. Poverty, human trafficking, drug use and access to education are the main focus for many of the organizations selected by Lots to Say Baby.

Snoqualmie, WA (PRWEB) June 29, 2009 — Lots to Say Baby announced recently that 4% of all pacifier sales will be donated to charities around the world that help children and young adults escape from the dangerous conditions they currently live in.

President of Lots to Say Baby, Erin Wilson said “We are part of a global community. One where children don’t have access to clean water, food, education or a safe place to call home. They are victims of human trafficking; of drug trade and extreme poverty. Our company isn’t just about the baby products we provide. It is about using our resources to reach children locally and in tiny villages across the world that don’t have the basics they need to survive.”

“Without access to these basics – food, water, a safe place to rest and access to education – these kids are not able to grow into the people they were meant to be” Wilson says.

The focus for 2009 is on charities that help people create a foundation of security and safety that they can use to build on with their own skills. This includes supporting micro loans for families to start small sustainable businesses, expanding access to University level education in Cambodia, and helping at-risk teens and young adults get out of environments that support drug use and human trafficking.

For more information on some of the charities supported by Lots to Say Baby please visit their website at www.LotsToSayBaby.com or call 888.340.3627 x124

More Publicity

Human trafficking received more publicity today on the Tavis Smiley Show on Public Radio International.

Kevin Bales and Rod Soodalter are guests on the Tavis Smiley Show in the segment called, The Slave Next Door

Please listen to the radio show and express your opinions.

http://www.tavissmileyradio.com/guests09/062609/KevinBales_RodSoodalter.html

New Laws in Iowa

The research is in in Iowa, and state legislators have realized just how much sex trafficking occurs in their state. For this reason their laws have changed.

From the Gazette Online,

By Rod Boshart

Des Moines Bureau
rod.boshart@gazettecommunications.com

“An expanded definition of “commercial sexual activity” in the state’s human trafficking law “will especially enable us to go after a common form of human trafficking, exploiting minors in the nude-dancing industry in Iowa,” Miller said.

The definition now extends to any sexually explicit performance for which anything of value is given, promised or received, beyond the current law’s provisions for prostitution, participation in the production of pornography and performances in strip clubs.

“Our prosecution work has taught us that human trafficking is much more prevalent than most of us ever thought,” Miller said.”

Way to go Iowa!

Burma: Something to think about

Though not directly linked to human trafficking, the following article by Laura Bush reminds of the atrocities occurring in Burma.

The extreme levels of secrecy and isolation in the country allows for the most serious kinds of human rights abuses, including the crime of slavery. Young girls are constantly forced to have sex and are not allowed to leave their abusers. One can only imagine the types of abuses that are occurring….

Do Not Forget Burma

By Laura Bush

Sunday, June 28, 2009

For two weeks, the world has been transfixed by images of Iranians taking to the streets to demand the most basic human freedoms and rights. Watching these courageous men and women, I am reminded of a similar scene nearly two years ago in Burma, when tens of thousands of Buddhist monks peacefully marched through their nation’s streets. They, too, sought to reclaim basic human dignity for all Burmese citizens, but they were beaten back by that nation’s harsh regime.

Since those brutal days in September 2007, Burma’s suffering has intensified. In the past 21 months, the number of political prisoners incarcerated by the junta has doubled. Within the past 10 days, two Burmese citizens were sentenced to 18 months in prison. Their offense: praying in a Buddhist pagoda for the release of the jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. That is only the tip of the regime’s brutality. Inside Burma, more than 3,000 villages have been “forcibly displaced” — a number exceeding the mass relocations in genocide-racked Darfur. The military junta has forced tens of thousands of child soldiers into its army and routinely uses civilians as mine-sweepers and slave laborers. It has closed churches and mosques; it has imprisoned comedians for joking about the government and bloggers for writing about it. Human trafficking, where women and children are snatched and sold, is pervasive. Summary executions pass for justice, while lawyers are arrested for the “crime” of defending the persecuted.

Rape is routinely used as a “weapon of war.” In 2006, I convened a roundtable at the United Nations to address the situation in Burma and listened as Burmese activist Hseng Noung described the rape victims she had aided. The youngest victim was 8; the oldest was 80. Her words silenced the room.

Yet time and again, the women of Burma, who are often the regime’s chief targets, have responded to this brutality with inspiring courage. I will never forget visiting the remote and crowded refugee camps on the mountainous border between Burma and Thailand. There, I watched the tireless efforts of Dr. Cynthia Maung to provide lifesaving medical aid for hundreds of Burmese in need, many of them ill or injured. I sat with victims of land mines who had lost legs or feet and were waiting quietly, often for hours, for basic care. Last fall, it was my great privilege to present a Vital Voices award to Charm Tong, who testified before U.N. officials at the age of 17 and eloquently described the systematic military campaign of rape and abuse that is being waged against women in Burma’s Shan state. She spoke unflinchingly even though her audience included representatives of the very regime she condemned.

More of us in America should make such courage our courage. At this moment, Aung San Suu Kyi, 64 and in fragile health, faces sentencing on trumped-up charges that could force her to endure five more years of brutal captivity. The junta leaders wish to undermine the Nobel Peace laureate’s influence ahead of next year’s elections. Leaders from around the world — including the United States — have called forcefully for the junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi and the 2,100 other political prisoners it is holding. Even Burma’s closest allies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have called for her to receive proper medical care and have warned that Burma’s “honor and credibility” are at stake. But the world must do more than express concern.

A new report from Harvard Law School asks the U.N. Security Council to establish a “commission of inquiry” into crimes against humanity and war crimes in Burma. Harvard’s panel of international law experts has carefully catalogued what it deems as the junta’s “widespread and systemic” human rights violations. The Security Council has already referred the crisis in Darfur to the International Criminal Court. It should do the same for Burma.

With U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon planning to visit Burma this summer, it is crucial that he press the regime to take immediate steps to end human rights abuses, particularly in ethnic minority areas. There have been 38 U.N. resolutions condemning these abuses, yet the horrors continue unabated. Under the junta’s brutal rule, too many lives have been wasted, lives whose talents could have helped all of Burma prosper.

But Aung San Suu Kyi’s continued example of civil courage — like those brave protesters in Iran — reminds all of us that no matter how callous the regime, it cannot lock up what she stands for: the fundamental desire of all people to live in freedom and with dignity. During the brief moments that foreign diplomats were allowed to observe her show trial, Aung San Suu Kyi calmly apologized for having to greet them in a prison, saying, “I hope to meet you in better times.” We should all share her hope — and add our voices to those who risk so much to protest tyranny and injustice in Burma and beyond.

Outreach

I am still planning to do some block walking this summer!

I plan to take a group into Alamo Heights and other nice neighborhoods and talk to people about the issue of domestic labor,  how they can help combat it, and how they can spot a victim of domestic slavery. We will be looking for nannies in the parks, au pairs, and maids working in the house who may not be able to leave their homes. If neighbors know what to look for, they can play an integral part in identifying victims.

I also plan to hand out materials at the local flea markets, and hand out posters and fliers to places where sex workers work and other places like gas stations, laundromats, etc.

It seems it will be a very busy summer for the human trafficking team!

Progress on the way?

What a great article!

The Bush Administration, as I’ve mentioned before, only caused more strife for sex workers, and often abused human rights. The idea of more brothel raids, and not giving aid to those agencies working with sex workers, only ostracized victims more and kept them from cooperating with and confiding in law enforcement.

Luckily, it seems that the Obama Administration will look at fighting all aspects of human trafficking, and not  focus on sex trafficking like his predecessor. The writer of this article tells us that new laws need to protect EVERYBODY. All workers have rights, including sex workers and domestic workers. Right now the laws do not protect workers in these jobs. Hopefully the new administration will demand rights and protection for all those who are exploited, and not require a certain immigration status or a certain level of exploitation to qualify for protection.

The sweep of modern-day slavery

Melissa Ditmore, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 June 2009 17.00 BST

As the global economy shrinks, human trafficking is on the rise – and it extends far beyond prostitution

As jobs disappear and unemployment increases, desperate people may accept worse conditions in order to have a job, even a bad one. Some businesses and individuals unscrupulously exploit this desperation in order to force others to work in poor conditions. From cacao and banana plantations in Ivory Coast, to gold mines in Ghana, to brothels in the US and Cambodia, thousands of people around the globe endure modern-day slavery, according to the US government’s 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report, released this month.

Migrants pay exorbitant fees for the promise of work, only to find themselves trapped in countries where they do not speak the language doing work for which they will not be paid. Parents send children to live with and work for others, sometimes with the promise of schooling, and the children are forced to work between 16 and 20 hours each day. Employers maintain control over their workers by keeping their passports, withholding their payments and subjecting them to physical and sexual abuse.

In the US, the Bush administrationfocused on sex trafficking, raiding brothels and massage parlours. But while some trafficked people were offered visas and assistance, more often the raids led to arrests and deportations. They also hampered efforts to bring the traffickers to justice. I interviewed many people, including trafficked sex workers, for a report released by the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in January 2009. We found that raids traumatised trafficked persons and discouraged them from cooperating with prosecution efforts. The Bush administration’s approach also needlessly targeted adult sex workers who were not trafficked and instead willingly engaged in prostitution and enjoyed decent working conditions.

The new TIP report suggests that the Obama administration is taking a more effective approach. Instead of adopting the Bush administration’s myopic focus on sex trafficking, the Obama administration has expanded the definition of trafficking to include a wider variety of examples of labour abuses than ever before. The new report focuses on force, fraud and coercion more generally, whether in the construction, fishing, mining or other industries.

The variety of economic sectors represented is especially pertinent as the global economy shrinks. Indeed, the report says:

The UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime published its second global trends in trafficking in persons in February 2009. UN officials said the worldwide rise in this form of modern-day slavery is a result of a growing demand for cheap goods and services. They expect the impact of the crisis to push more business underground to avoid taxes and unionised labour. And they anticipate increasing use of forced, cheap and child labour by multinational companies strapped by financial struggles.

Applying existing labour laws would address many abusive situations, including trafficking. Wage and hour stipulations are additional tools that are currently under-utilised. The Obama administration and the international community should also recognise informal labour situations. Many people who cannot legally work in the country where they live seek work in informal sectors – in bars and restaurants, for example, or in homes as nannies or maids, or as day labourers.

Labour rights in the US apply to everyone regardless of immigration status. These laws address working conditions and should be applied and enforced in factories and other workplaces. But these laws do not apply to live-in and domestic workers, who are often isolated and vulnerable to abuse including trafficking. They do not apply to sex workers, who are often in illegal workplaces. These laws should be expanded to apply to domestic workers and sex workers, two venues that the newest TIP report cites as particularly vulnerable to workplace abuses.

New California Bill

An interesting bill has passed in California, which like Texas, has a high number of human trafficking cases. It also gives some solid statistics.

Committee Approves Human Trafficking Bill

California Chronicle, California Political Desk

June 25, 2009

SACRAMENTO – The Assembly Public Safety Committee approved legislation that would allow courts to seize any property, such as house or automobile, used in the commission of the crime. In addition to the courts seizing property used in human trafficking, SB 557 would add civil penalties of up to $25,000.

“SB 557 will bring much-needed resources to help fight human trafficking, while also ensuring victims receive the services they need to recover from this horrific crime,” said the bill´s author, Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mateo). “Between 14,500 and 17,500 victims are trafficked into the United States each year and enslaved for purposes of sexual or labor exploitation, and unfortunately many of the cases occur here in California. Our state has led the way in combating human trafficking and exploitation, but we should not stop our efforts until all women, men, and children are free and safe from such an appalling offense.”

Approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims annually are trafficked across international borders worldwide, according to the US Department of State. Victims are generally trafficked into the US from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe. Many human trafficking victims do not understand English and are therefore isolated and often unable to communicate with service providers, law enforcement and others who might be able to help them.

Research by the Human Rights Center at the University of California found 57 forced labor operations between 1998 and 2003 throughout California. These operations – mostly in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Jose – involved more than 500 victims from 18 countries.

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Check out the updates on SAT Case under Cases in Texas!