captivedaughters

Los Angeles Screening + Party on January 26

2011-01-17T12:09:00.001-08:00

The Victory Day Project, a collective of visual media professionals, partnering with Captive Daughters is proud to present an L.A. screening , in solidarity with National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, of “Victory Day," a feature film that exposes the causes and ramifications behind Human Trafficking in Eastern Europe. This unique film looks at how the destabilization and corruption of governments affects local communities and makes them vulnerable to exploitation.

Directed and Produced by Sean Ramsay, the cast is lead by Natalia Shiyanova, Milan Kolik, and Ramsay, together with a cast of about 80 other actors.

The film is showing at the Downtown Independent Theatre, Wednesday, January 26, at 7:00 PM, followed by a soiree on the rooftop bar. Tickets are $10. RSVP required at the Victory Day Project's Facebook page.

Support The Victory Day Project!

2011-01-07T14:19:00.000-08:00

VICTORY DAY PROJECT SUMMARY from Victory Day on Vimeo.

Dear Friends and Supports of Captive Daughters:

We are pleased to be a partner in supporting the distribution of the anti-sex trafficking film, Victory Day. The director, Sean Ramsay, has asked for our help in bringing in donations that will allow the Victory Day Project to:

1. Screen the film throughout Moldova via a mobile theater
2. Complete an accompanying documentary about real-life trafficking
3. Distribute the film for screenings throughout the United States

Your help is essential in realizing these three goals of the Victory Day Project. Donating $20, $50, $100, $200 or more will ensure that this film is widely seen and that the documentary is completed. All gifts are tax-deductible, and each generous donation $50 and over comes with a gift.

DONATE NOW BY VISITING NOTRAFFICKING.NET!

The Victory Day Project's director, Sean Ramsay, has generously agreed to give a portion of the donations to Captive Daughters, so your gift will help to support both independent film AND non-profit anti-trafficking groups like ours.

Thank you and happy new year!

Woman from Maiti Nepal Named CNN "Hero of the Year"

2010-12-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles, California (CNN) -- A woman whose group (Maiti Nepal) has rescued more than 12,000 women and girls from sex slavery has been named the 2010 CNN Hero of the Year.

Anuradha Koirala was chosen by the public in an online poll that ran for eight weeks on CNN.com. CNN's Anderson Cooper revealed the result at the conclusion of the fourth annual "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute."

"Human trafficking is a crime, a heinous crime, a shame to humanity," Koirala said earlier in the evening after being introduced as one of the top 10 CNN Heroes of 2010. "I ask everyone to join me to create a society free of trafficking. We need to do this for all our daughters."
Koirala was introduced by actress Demi Moore, who along with her husband, Ashton Kutcher, created DNA, The Demi and Ashton Foundation, which aims to eliminate child sex slavery worldwide.

"Every day this woman confronts the worst of what humanity has to offer," Moore said of Koirala. "She says, 'Stop. Stop selling our girls.' By raiding brothels and patrolling the India-Nepal border, she saves girls from being sold into the sex trade, where they are being repeatedly raped for profit, tortured and enslaved...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AND WATCH THE VIDEO ON CNN.com

Dec 10: Freedom Friday

2010-12-09T13:28:00.000-08:00

In the time it takes you to read this email, as many as twenty vulnerable people somewhere in Asia will be sold into slavery: a victim of human trafficking. Sold into a factory to work 7 days a week, 14 hours a day. Sold onto a fishing boat for years of cruel mistreatment. Sold into a brothel to experience horrific violence and abuse.

None are paid for their work, and none are free to leave.

This is slavery.

How can you help?

December 10th, 2010 is Human Rights Day. To mark this day, do something that over 20 million people living in slavery today cannot do:
buy some freedom.

On 10 December, we are asking companies to either donate US$10 per staff member and buy them some freedom or give your employees a chance to buy some freedom for themselves.

Making freedom work in your organization.

You decide what form that freedom takes and who in your organization participates.

For some, US$10 might buy freedom from the computer for an hour or maybe a day. For others, it may buy a staff member out of a meeting or free him from photocopying. It is up to your organization to decide what works. Each person freed with your donation will be contributing to the fight against human slavery in Asia.

Check Out Some Creative Freedom Campaigns

Every bit counts.

Your US$10 per staff member donation will be part of a regional effort to stop slavery.

Donations can be used for something as powerful as safe transport for a victim of trafficking to a shelter, removing the risk of being caught and re-sold; something as simple as safe migration messaging that can prevent a person from being trafficked in the first place; or something as potent as moving a trafficking case through the courts to ensure that a criminal gets the punishment he deserves.

Whether you're 1 person, 50 people, or 5000 people, your contribution counts.

The funds raised on 10 December will be used by the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP) and the international partners and NGOs they work with to combat human trafficking, rescue and rehabilitate victims of slavery, and break down the trade in human lives.

AND SEE HOW MANY STAFF YOU CAN SIGN ON FOR US$10 A HEAD

Need to understand the issue better?

Go to UNIAP's website.

www.no-trafficking.org

Visit one of UNIAP’s partners, MTV EXIT and take a minute to watch this music video that highlights the issues of modern day slavery.

www.mtvexit.org/somethings_muse.html

Thanking you in anticipation of making this heroic decision.

Jude Mannion,
Robin Hood Foundation Asia
mannion@robinhoodasia.com
021 434 464

Matt Friedman
Regional Project Manager,
The United Nations Inter Agency Project on Human Trafficking (UNIAP)

matt.friedman@one.un.org

Swedish Inst: Targeting the Sexbuyer

2010-12-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

From the Swedish Institute: A new publication on human trafficking and prostitution has been released - Targeting the sexbuyer. The Swedish example: stopping prostitution and trafficking where it all begins is written by Kajsa Claude. The publication is available in English, Russian, Spanish and Turkish (all open as PDFs)

READ MORE ABOUT THIS PUBLICATION AND ITS AUTHOR

NYT: A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave.

2010-12-09T12:34:00.000-08:00

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times -- Americans tend to associate “modern slavery” with illiterate girls in India or Cambodia. Yet there I was the other day, interviewing a college graduate who says she spent three years terrorized by pimps in a brothel in Midtown Manhattan.

Those who think that commercial sex in this country is invariably voluntary — and especially men who pay for sex — should listen to her story. The men buying her services all mistakenly assumed that she was working of her own volition, she says.

Yumi Li (a nickname) grew up in a Korean area of northeastern China. After university, she became an accountant, but, restless and ambitious, she yearned to go abroad.

So she accepted an offer from a female jobs agent to be smuggled to New York and take up a job using her accounting skills and paying $5,000 a month. Yumi’s relatives had to sign documents pledging their homes as collateral if she did not pay back the $50,000 smugglers’ fee from her earnings.

Yumi set off for America with a fake South Korean passport. On arrival in New York, however, Yumi was ordered to work in a brothel.

“When they first mentioned prostitution, I thought I would go crazy,” Yumi told me. “I was thinking, ‘how can this happen to someone like me who is college-educated?’ ” Her voice trailed off, and she added: “I wanted to die.”

She says that the four men who ran the smuggling operation — all Chinese or South Koreans — took her into their office on 36th Street in Midtown Manhattan. They beat her with their fists (but did not hit her in the face, for that might damage her commercial value), gang-raped her and videotaped her naked in humiliating poses. For extra intimidation, they held a gun to her head...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

Native Women Vulnerable to Trafficking

2010-11-05T18:24:00.000-07:00

Amnesty International

Vigil in Ottawa, Canada, honoring missing and/or murdered Native women

American Indian, Native Alaskan and Native Canadian women and girls from rural areas are prime targets for sex traffickers.

“Joker waited until I had brought myself down really low. That’s when he pushed me to work for the gang,” Maggie told me.

Maggie, 41, is from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. She is describing how her boyfriend, Joker, began trafficking her into the sex trade.

Fleeing a violent husband, she left the reservation for a new life in Minneapolis. She became addicted to drugs and came to rely on her boyfriend, a member of a local street gang, for drugs and companionship. Soon, however, he insisted that she be initiated into his gang, a process involving gang rape by several members. He also insisted that she must contribute to the gang by trading sex for drugs and money. He routinely drives her to meet “dates,” men with whom she will trade sex for money or drugs.

“He told me he loves me and that all his friends did the same thing with their girlfriends,” she said.

Sometimes, Maggie admits, she helps coerce other Indian girls into prostitution for the gang.

“He said if I really loved him, I would do anything for him,” she said.

Local social services removed her children from her home when she abandoned them in her search for drugs. Her world now revolves around Joker and the gang...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT DailyYonder.com

Romania: Rescuing Young Women From Traffickers' Hands

2010-11-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

Davin Ellicson for The New York Times

Iana Matei in her office at the shelter she founded for sex trafficked women.

CONSTANTA, ROMANIA -- The 15-year-old had been “trained” in prostitution in a nightclub in the southern Romanian city of Calarasi. Now, the sex traffickers were getting ready to sell her off to a Turkish brothel for $2,800.

Iana Matei, Romania’s leading advocate for the victims of trafficking, had made contact with the girl and offered to wait outside the nightclub in her car, ready to take the teenager away if she could get out on the street for a cigarette break. But the girl had tried to escape before, and had been beaten severely. Ms. Matei was not sure she would have the courage to try again.

Then she appeared, bolting for the car and scrambling into the back seat. The hitch came a few minutes later.

As Ms. Matei gunned the engine and raced down unfamiliar streets, worried that the traffickers would follow, she got totally lost.

“I kept shouting at her to tell me where to go,” Ms. Matei said. “And she was not being very helpful, and I was not being very nice to her. And finally, I stopped the car and looked back and the face I saw...

“I realized it was me who was being dumb. She was so scared, there was no way she could help me.”

For more than 10 years, Ms. Matei, a psychologist by training, has been pulling young women out of the hands of traffickers, sometimes by staging “kidnappings,” sometimes just by offering them a place to stay, heal and rebuild their lives...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

UN: End Obstetric Fistula Campaign

2010-11-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

Video from EndFistula.org

UN calls for $750 million to treat 3.5 million women with obstetric fistula by 2015

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is calling for at least $750 million to treat some 3.5 million cases of obstetric fistula by 2015 in an effort to cure the debilitating injury caused by obstruction in giving birth.

“Obstetric fistula is one of the most devastating consequences of neglect during childbirth and a stark example of health inequity in the world,” he says in a report to the General Assembly released today, in which he calls for intensified investment in cost-effective interventions, including surgery, to address the problem that afflicts women with the leakage of bodily wastes.

“Although the condition has been eliminated in the developed world, obstetric fistula continues to afflict the most impoverished women and girls, most of whom live in rural and remote areas of the developing world.”

Reconstructive surgery can repair fistula injury and most women can be treated and, with appropriate psychosocial care, reintegrated into their communities, but few health-care facilities are able to provide high-quality fistula treatment owing to the limited number of health-care professionals with the appropriate skills...

READ FULL ARTICLE AT UN.org

UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking Report

2010-10-11T13:55:00.000-07:00

LEARN WHAT THE UN'S SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON TRAFFICKING IS DOING THROUGHOUT THE WORLD ON SEX TRAFFICKING ISSUES

At its sixtieth session, the Commission on Human Rights adopted decision 2004/110, by which it decided to appoint, for a three-year period, a Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children to focus on the human rights aspects of the victims of trafficking in persons. In the same decision, the Commission invited the Special Rapporteur to submit annual reports to the Commission together with recommendations on measures required to uphold and protect the human rights of the victims. The Commission requested the Special Rapporteur to respond effectively to reliable information on possible human rights violations with a view to protecting the human rights of actual or potential victims of trafficking and to cooperate fully with other relevant special rapporteurs, in particular the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, and to take full account of their contributions to the issue. The Commission also requested the Special Rapporteur to cooperate with relevant United Nations bodies, regional organizations and victims and their representatives. The Economic and Social Council, in its decision 2004/228, endorsed Commission on Human Rights’ decision 2004/110.

On 18 June 2008, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur has been extended for another three years by the Human Rights Council resolution 8/12.

In the discharge of his/her mandate, the Special Rapporteur:

a) Takes action on violations committed against trafficked persons and on situations in which there has been a failure to protect their human rights (See Individual complaints)

b) Undertakes country visits in order to study the situation in situ and formulate recommendations to prevent and or combat trafficking and protect the human rights of its victims in specific countries and/or regions

c) Submits annual reports on the activities of the mandate

Please send an email to SRtrafficking@ohchr.org if you would like to submit information to the Special Rapporteur.

Cambodia: Mostly Local Men Abusing Minors, Study Finds

2010-10-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

CAMBODIA - The vast majority of former child sex workers surveyed on behalf of a local NGO said their main clients were Cambodian men.

The executive director of the NGO that commissioned the study described the finding as “very surprising”.

A report detailing the findings of the study states that paedophiles “tend to be Cambodians, rather than foreigners, contrary to the usually held assumption that paedophilia is a Western problem and that Cambodians are not engaged in such activities”.

Chin Chanveasna, executive director of End Child Prostitution, Abuse and Trafficking in Cambodia, said that local demand for commercial sex with children was often overlooked, as NGOs and other stakeholders focused on foreigners.

In the study, done earlier this year and presented at a conference on trafficking, all but one of 43 former child sex workers surveyed in Phnom Penh said their regular clients were Cambodian men.

Of the 13 respondents who reported having sold their virginity, 68 percent said their clients had been Cambodian, according to the study...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT the PhnomPenhPost.com

Watch a report from Al Jazeera on child prostitution in Cambodia:

New Report on India Sex-Trafficking Available Online

2010-10-11T13:41:00.001-07:00

Stolen Lives: Dignity, Forgiveness, Hope, and Future-Mindedness For Victims of Sex Trafficking in India by Victor Joseph, D.Min, edited by Kent R. Hill, Ph.D. is available in its entirety online at Templeton.org (opens as a PDF).

Funded by the John Templeton Foundation, the report focuses on trafficked victims between the ages of 14 and 22 who were sold into brothels. The research analyzes their psychological and emotional stages in a post-brothel setting, and also looks at the impact of forgiveness and future-mindedness on their lives.

With over 700,000 victims trafficked throughout the world each year, and with India serving as a major trafficking hub, psychological research on trafficked victims is an important tool for NGOs, universities, governments, and law enforcement personnel who work to not only tackle this global issue, but also help restore the lives of these traumatized victims.

US: California Signs "Chelsea's Law"

2010-10-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA - Anyone convicted of certain sex offenses against a child in California will get life in prison without parole after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed "Chelsea's Law" last month.

The law was named for 17-year-old Chelsea King, who was murdered this year by a registered sex offender who also admitted having killed 14-year-old Amber Dubois.

"Because of Chelsea, California children will be safer," Schwarzenegger said. "Because of Chelsea, this never has to happen again."

The "one-strike" provision applies to forcible sex crimes against minors that include aggravating factors, such as the victim's age or whether the victim was bound or drugged...

READ MORE AT CNN.com

US: Some See a Ploy as Craigslist Blocks Sex Ads

2010-09-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- Craigslist, by shutting off its “adult services” section and slapping a “censored” label in its place, may be engaging in a high-stakes stunt to influence public opinion, some analysts say.

Since blocking access to the ads as the Labor Day weekend began — and suspending a revenue stream that could bring in an estimated $44 million this year — Craigslist has refused to discuss its motivations. But using the word “censored” suggests that the increasingly combative company is trying to draw attention to its fight with state attorneys general over sex ads and to issues of free speech on the Internet.

The law has been on Craigslist’s side. The federal Communications Decency Act protects Web sites against liability for what their users post on the sites. And last year, the efforts of attorneys general were stymied when a federal judge blocked South Carolina’s attorney general from prosecuting Craigslist executives for listings that resulted in prostitution arrests.

“It certainly appears to be a statement about how they feel about being judged in the court of public opinion,” said Thomas R. Burke, a First Amendment lawyer at Davis Wright Tremaine who specializes in Internet law and does not work for Craigslist. “It’s certainly the law that they’re not liable for it, but it’s another matter if the attorneys general are saying change your ways.”

Attorneys general and advocacy groups have continued to pressure the company to remove the “adult services” section. A letter from 17 state attorneys general dated Aug. 24 demanded that Craigslist close the section, contending that it helped facilitate prostitution and the trafficking of women and children...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

US: Craigslist Blocks Access to 'Adult Services' Pages

2010-09-04T23:39:00.000-07:00

Craigslist, the popular Web site for classified ads, has blocked access to its “adult services” section and replaced the link with a black label showing the word “censored.”

Law-enforcement officials and groups that oppose human trafficking have been highly critical of Craigslist, saying that the adult ads helped facilitate prostitution and the selling of women against their will.

Craigslist, which is based in San Francisco, did not respond to requests for comment, and it was unclear whether the block represented a permanent shift in policy or a temporary protest against the outside pressure on the company, which has lasted several years.

Last month the attorneys general from 17 states sent a letter to Craigslist’s chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, and its founder, Craig Newmark, asking the company to immediately remove the adult services section...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

NY: Accusation of Misconduct in the Gambino Case

2010-09-01T13:42:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK - When federal authorities charged recently that the Gambino crime family had been involved in sex trafficking with girls as young as 15, one prosecutor suggested that the activity might represent “a new low for the Gambino family.”

But now a defense lawyer in the case contends that the government helped promote that same kind of illegal activity.

The lawyer, Gerald J. McMahon, said in newly filed court papers that one of the men running the trafficking ring was a convicted sex abuser who had a cooperation agreement as a federal witness.

“A reasonable person might wonder,” Mr. McMahon wrote, “whether the government — in its zeal to make a racketeering case against the Gambino family — allowed a 15-year-old girl to be shamefully and criminally exploited.”

The witness began cooperating with the government in 2008, court papers show, while the sex trafficking occurred in 2009. While he was a witness, he acted as the 15-year-old girl’s pimp, Mr. McMahon said...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

Thailand: Trafficking Realities of Young Girls

2010-09-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

NORTHERN THAILAND - At an age when we would regard them as still being children, thousands of young children from Northern Thailand have and continue to be, lured, forced or coerced into prostitution. Girls as young as 10 years old have been sold into the brothels of Bangkok and other cities in the region and even overseas. In some areas as many as 90% of girls have left their village to work.

While Northern Thailand has long provided traffickers with a supply of young girls the mid 1980's saw a new trend emerge. Traffickers expanded their networks further a field into Thailand's neighboring countries. Agents have now established networks reaching into Thailand's neighbours including Burma, Laos, the southern Yunnan province of China, Cambodia and Vietnam (the Mekong Sub-Region). The children are mainly brought in through North and Northeastern Thailand where they are then taken to other areas within the country. Although there are no exact figures available regarding the numbers of children being trafficked into Thailand for sexual exploitation, estimates nevertheless provide an indicative picture. From Burma, it was estimated in 1994 that as many as 20,000 to 30,000 women and girls had been trafficked primarily into brothels in Thailand, with 10,000 new recruits being added each year...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT DEPDC.org

Nepal: Catwalk Cat Charged with Trafficking

2010-09-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

KATHMANDU, NEPAL - Anita Nakarmi wanted to be a professional beautician. To pursue this dream of hers, she sold her beauty parlour in Kathmandu and boarded a flight to Singapore to enroll in a beautician course there.

Nakarmi paid Rs. 800,000 to Ramita Bhandari, a model-turned-dancer who happened to be her relative, hoping that she would get herself admitted to a prestigious beautician training school in Singapore.

Nakarmi's dreams were shattered when she found out that she was instead taken there to work in dance restaurants and brothels.

“Bhandari started forcing me to work in a dance restaurant,” Nakarmi said. “When I refused, she started misbehaving with me.”

“I had never thought Bhandari, who is my close relative, will do such a thing to me. Many other Nepali girls are trapped there,” Nakarmi said. She found that Bhandari was a member of a trafficking racket whose job was to lure Nepali girls to Singapore and then force them into prostitution.

Bhandari and her associates, who are also said to be into prostitution, used to get commission from owners of the dance bars and brothels.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT eKantipur.com

Essay: The Swedish Approach to Sex Trafficking, Prostitution & the Sex Industry

2010-08-06T13:37:00.001-07:00

ESSAY BY JANICE RAYMOND - There is no doubt that the Nordic countries lead the world on most indicators of gender equality. Gender equality experts and advocates have long pointed out that in economics, politics and social services, the Nordic countries top the charts. A less noticed equality indicator is that the Nordic countries outpace others in legal action to stem the sex trade by addressing its unnoticed perpetrators -- the mainly male purchasers of women and children in prostitution.

In 1999, with the approval of over 70% of its surveyed population, Sweden passed groundbreaking legislation that criminalized the buyer of sexual services. Part of a larger Violence Against Women bill, the legislation was based on the foundation that the system of prostitution is a violation of gender equality. Sweden's legislation officially recognizes that it is unacceptable for men to purchase women for sexual exploitation, whether masked as sexual pleasure or "sex work." Equally important, its law acknowledges that a country cannot resolve its human trafficking problem without addressing the demand for prostitution. The law
does not target the persons in prostitution.

This month, the government of Sweden published an evaluation of the law's first ten years and how it has actually worked in practice. Compared to the report's understated and cautious tone, the findings are strikingly positive: street prostitution has been cut in half; there is no evidence that the reduction in street prostitution has led to an increase in prostitution elsewhere, whether indoors or on the Internet; the bill provides increased services for women to exit prostitution; fewer men state that they purchase sexual services; and the ban has had a chilling effect on traffickers who find Sweden an unattractive market to sell women and children for sex. Following initial criticism of the law, police now confirm it works well and has had a deterrent effect on other organizers and promoters of prostitution. Sweden appears to be the only country in Europe where prostitution and sex trafficking has not increased...

READ THE FULL ESSAY ON PortSide.org

US:: State Legislatures Step Up Efforts to Fight Human Trafficking

2010-08-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON POST - A burst of activity among state legislatures to target human trafficking has ushered in dozens of laws to step up criminal penalties against traffickers and offer new help to victims.

The laws focus on practices that have remained largely hidden -- traffickers' coercion of victims into becoming prostitutes, forced laborers or domestic slaves. Some states have introduced measurers that criminalize human trafficking specifically for the first time. Advocates say the efforts signal that lawmakers are gaining a fuller appreciation of the scope of human trafficking.

So far this year, more than 40 bills have been enacted and roughly 350 introduced. That compares with just eight bills adopted across the country in 2006, according to the Polaris Project, an anti-trafficking group based in Washington.

Ann Morse, a director at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), said bills tackling human trafficking are "the latest big trend." The efforts have followed coverage of high-profile cases and a growing grass-roots campaign among advocates.

The term "trafficking," said Bradley Myles, executive director of the Polaris Project, "makes people think of whips, chains, brute force and channel slavery." In reality, he said, traffickers may simply use threats or blackmail, or confiscate a victim's travel documents to gain control over them. Victims have included U.S. citizens forced into work without being moved across a border...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT WashingtonPost.com

Int"l US Policy a Paper Tiger Against Sex Trade in War Zones

2010-08-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON POST - An eight-year-old policy that forbids government contractors and employees to engage in sex trafficking in war zones has proved almost impossible to enforce amid indications that such activities are occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The policy, instituted eight years ago by President George W. Bush and still in effect today, calls for the prosecution of government employees and contractors who engage in trafficking and the suspension or disqualification of companies whose workers do. Bush's get-tough language also threatened criminal prosecutions for solicitation of prostitutes because many of the women are forced into the work.

Agencies say the cases are difficult to pursue because of limited investigative resources and jurisdictional questions. But some experts and lawmakers believe that authorities are turning a blind eye to evidence of such crimes.

"Zero prosecutions," said Martina Vandenberg, a lawyer and former Human Rights Watch investigator, "suggests zero effort to enforce the law."

The State Department reported recently that allegations of contractors' employees procuring commercial sex acts were "well publicized" but that no contractors have been prosecuted and no contracts terminated.

Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), author of a 2000 U.S. anti-trafficking law, questions whether agencies vigorously pursue allegations. He suggested that if authorities really cared about the women being exploited, they would not look away "when those we are paying to do jobs for us are exploiting them."

Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar said the agency "investigates all credible allegations of human trafficking."...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT WashingtonPost.com

Sweden: Legalising Prostitution is Not the Answer

2010-07-15T13:56:00.000-07:00

Last month, Captive Diaries posted an article about similar findings in Germany

A new report backs the effectiveness of an 11-year-old Swedish law that criminalises those who pay for or attempt to pay for sex.

Photograph: Suvad Mrkonjic/Scanpix/PA Photos

SWEDEN -- It is rare to have academic consensus on controversial areas of study, but currently in the UK it seems that the vast majority of academics studying prostitution and the sex industry are in agreement. It is almost impossible to find even a handful involved in this massively expanding area of study that will deviate from the opinion that the sex industry should be legalised or decriminalised, and that penalising sex buyers has a negative effect on those selling sexual services. Most academic studies produced in the past few years conclude that little harm is caused to those involved in prostitution, despite the thousands of testimonies on record of survivors of this abusive trade.

Today, Förbud mot köp av sexuell tjänst: en utvärdering 1999-2008 (Prohibition of the Purchase of a Sexual Service: an Evaluation 1999-2008), a report on the evaluation of the 11-year-old Swedish law that criminalises those who pay for or attempt to pay for sex, is released, and its conclusion is that the legislation has been overwhelmingly positive for all (except the pimps, traffickers and punters, of course). I hope it will put paid to the scores of assertions bandied about during the past decade that the law has been detrimental to those in prostitution as well as to wider society.

In a letter to a newspaper dated January 2006, Belinda Brooks-Gordon, reader in psychology and social policy at Birkbeck and an enthusiastic lobbyist for a repeal of all prostitution laws, wrote in response to the Home Office's 2004 green paper on prostitution, Paying the Price: "The government's idiosyncratic attention to the evidence base neglects the vast body of research, which shows that Sweden's policy of criminalising buyers of commercial sex is not progressive but rather that it is retrogressive, dangerous, unworkable and expensive …"

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Guardian.co.uk

Kristof: Seduction, Slavery and Sex

2010-07-15T13:49:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK TIMES -- Against all odds, this year’s publishing sensation is a trio of thrillers by a dead Swede relating tangentially to human trafficking and sexual abuse.

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” series tops the best-seller lists. More than 150 years ago, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” helped lay the groundwork for the end of slavery. Let’s hope that these novels help build pressure on trafficking as a modern echo of slavery.

Human trafficking tends to get ignored because it is an indelicate, sordid topic, with troubled victims who don’t make great poster children for family values. Indeed, many of the victims are rebellious teenage girls — often runaways — who have been in trouble with their parents and the law, and at times they think they love their pimps.

Because trafficking gets ignored, it rarely is a top priority for law enforcement officials — so it seems to be growing. Various reports and studies, none of them particularly reliable, suggest that between 100,000 and 600,000 children may be involved in prostitution in the United States, with the numbers increasing.

Just last month, police freed a 12-year-old girl who they said had been imprisoned in a Knights Inn hotel in Laurel, Md. The police charged a 42-year-old man, Derwin Smith, with human trafficking and false imprisonment in connection with the case.

The Anne Arundel County Police Department said that Mr. Smith met the girl in a seedy area, had sex with her and then transported her back and forth from Washington, D.C., to Atlantic City, N.J., while prostituting her.

“The juvenile advised that all of the money made was collected and kept by the suspect,” the police department said in a statement. “At one point, the victim conveyed to the suspect that she wanted to return home, but he held her against her will.”

Just two days later, the same police force freed three other young women from a Garden Inn about a block away. They were 16, 19 and 23, and police officials accused a 23-year-old man, Gabriel Dreke-Hernandez, of pimping them...

READ THE FULL COLUMN AT NYTimes.com

2010 Trafficking in Persons Report Released Today, US Ranked for First Time

2010-06-14T18:06:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON D.C. -- Today, the 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report was released by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the US State Department. This year, the tenth since the report's inception in 2001, marks the first time the United States has been given a ranking - that of "Tier 1," or the top position of the four possible rankings.

Secretary of State Clinton, introduced this year's report with these remarks: "The 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report outlines the continuing challenges across the globe, including in the United States. The Report, for the first time, includes a ranking of the United States based on the same standards to which we hold other countries. The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.

This year’s report highlights several key trends, including the suffering of women and children in involuntary domestic servitude, the challenges and successes in identifying and protecting victims, and the need to include anti-trafficking policies in our response to natural disasters, as was evident in the aftermath of this year’s earthquake in Haiti.

Ending this global scourge is an important policy priority for the United States. This fluid phenomenon continues to affect cultures, communities, and countries spanning the globe. Through partnerships, we can confront it head-on and lift its victims from slavery to freedom."

VIEW THE FULL REPORT AT State.gov

2010 Trafficking in Persons Report Released
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UN: Fighting Trafficking, New Report from the Special Rapporteur

2010-06-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND - “Trafficking in persons -one of the most appalling forms of human rights’ violations- remains one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world, and the role of regional organizations fighting against it cannot be underestimated,” UN Special Rapporteur Joy Ngozi Ezeilo (left) said on Wednesday, before presenting her annual report on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to the Human Rights Council.

“While better cooperation among countries of origin, transit and destination is key to address this scourge,” the independent expert said, “the role of regional and sub-regional organizations in catalyzing the action of States in combating trafficking in a specific region has not received sufficient attention and support.”

“I am convinced that regional and sub-regional mechanisms play a key role in providing a response that is both multilateral and sufficiently close to countries’ realities and specificities within a certain region,” she added.

The Special Rapporteur’s 2010 report focuses on the role and added-value of these cooperation mechanisms in the fight against trafficking. Ms Ezeilo shares a number of good practices that could positively be reproduced in other areas of the world. She also highlights the most pressing challenges that these organizations face, including the growing use of new information technologies by traffickers around the world.

Noting that the majority of regional and sub-regional organizations still tend to focus almost exclusively on the criminalization of traffickers, the Special Rapporteur urged them to adopt a human rights and victim-centred perspective in the action: “In order to be effective, they should put the rights of the victim at the core of their strategies and actions. By doing so, they will succeed both in protecting victims and prosecuting traffickers.”

“One of my key messages,” Ms Ezeilo stressed, “is that it is only by properly protecting and assisting victims that you can effectively prosecute traffickers”.

The Special Rapporteur plans to hold a consultation on the topic of her report, inviting representatives from regional and sub-regional organizations and other relevant partners.

Ms. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo assumed her functions as Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children on 1 August 2008. Ms. Ezeilo is a human rights lawyer and professor at the University of Nigeria. She has also served in various governmental capacities, including as Honourable Commissioner for Ministry of Women Affairs & Social Development in Enugu State and as a Delegate to the National Political Reform Conference. She has consulted for various international organizations and is also involved in several NGOs, particularly working on women’s rights. She has published extensively on a variety of topics, including human rights, women’s rights, and Sharia law.

The Special Rapporteur’s report is available at: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.32.pdf

NY: 8 Charged in Brooklyn Sex Trafficking Case

2010-06-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK -- Prompted by a wide-ranging investigation into the cases of about 15 girls who said they were forced into prostitution, District Attorney Charles J. Hynes of Brooklyn said Wednesday that he was creating a Sex Trafficking Unit to take aim at those who sexually exploit women and girls.

Eight people have been indicted on charges that include sex trafficking or promoting prostitution as a result of the investigation.

About eight months ago, a Brooklyn teenager told an official at her school that she had been forced into prostitution. Building on her story, investigators uncovered more cases of girls who were raped, threatened with violence and forced to sell their bodies to meet daily quotas, an official said.

“There are perhaps few more despicable crimes than to force 15- and 16-year-old children into prostitution,” Mr. Hynes said.

The pimps sometimes started off as boyfriends or had acquaintances recruit friends and schoolmates from local high schools and middle schools, luring girls with promises of cash and “a generous lifestyle,” he added.

Instead, the men used threats and violence to force the women to meet quotas of $500 a day or more, meeting clients at sex parties or through the “adult services” categories of Craigslist and other Web sites...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

Country Report- GREECE sex trafficking

2010-06-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

Presented by Captive Daughters.

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Country Report- THE NORDIC COUNTRIES sex trafficking

2010-06-10T20:11:00.002-07:00

Presented by Captive Daughters.

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Country Report - HAITI sex trafficking

2010-06-10T20:11:00.001-07:00

Presented by Captive Daughters.

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Country Report- ITALY sex trafficking

2010-06-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

Presented by Captive Daughters.

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Video: The Rebecca Project

2010-06-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

CA: Anti-Traffickers to Demonstrate in Sacramento June 28

2010-06-10T20:04:00.000-07:00

Supporters of Strong Human Trafficking Law Will Rally in Sacramento

California Against Slavery to call for tougher state laws against human trafficking at State Capitol rally

SACRAMENTO -- June 1, 2010 -- California Against Slavery will host a rally in Sacramento , Calif. , on June 28, 2010, to call for stronger human trafficking laws in California and stress the growing problem of human trafficking in the state.

"Human trafficking is a criminal business that profits from enslaving people for sexual servitude and forced labor. It is flourishing in California because the law is weak," said Daphne Phung, executive director of California Against Slavery. "There is an urgent need for laws that would provide stiffer measures to stop traffickers, better protection for human trafficking victims, and greater funding for organizations that serve human trafficking victims. We are calling all Californians to speak up at the rally. Let's make a big deal of a big issue."

The rally will start at Raley Field at 9:45 a.m on June 28, 2010. The group will march to the State Capitol West Steps at 10 a.m. The rally will feature speakers, musical performances, and visits to the offices of California legislators.

For updates on the rally, please visit our website at:

http://www.californiaagainstslavery.org

About California Against Slavery:

California Against Slavery is a non-profit group organized by Californians appalled by the injustice of modern day slavery in our state and around the world.

Our mission is to strengthen California state laws to better reflect the personal and societal impact of human trafficking.

Germany: Legalized Prostitution Increases Sex Trafficking

2010-06-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

GERMANY -- German chief police reported yesterday sex trafficking is on the rise in the country. The chief officer also said that sex trafficking has increased 11 percent from last year and 70% over five year period. While many advocates for legalized prostitution argued that legalization should improve the rights of prostitutes and eliminate discrimination, the case in Germany shows otherwise. Rather, the sex industry in Germany became a magnet for sex traffickers from Eastern Europe and African countries. Further, it became a source of exploitation of German as well as other foreign women rather than their emancipation to support their right to sell their bodies.

German's current prostitution legislation
According to the police report, since the legalization, sex trade is tolerated in most part of German soil except for a few industrialized area. Many Eastern European women are forced into prostitution in Germany, but forced prostitution of African women are on the rise as well. The African women are manipulated or coerced into prostitution by using voodoo rituals to intimate victims in many cases. But the greater concern lies elsewhere. The police said that child trafficking comprises 65 out of 534 cases reported last year, and 41 of them were under the age of 14.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Examiner.com

Introducing: Captive Daughters T-Shirts (and More!)

2010-05-25T22:39:00.001-07:00

Check out our new store at CafePress.com where you'll find apparel for women, men and children, tote bags, water bottles and other logo items. Your purchase will help us to "Free Them" - the victims of sex trafficking.

USA: Child Prostitution in Portland, Oregon

2010-05-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

PORTLAND, OREGON - Child prostitution has become a national problem in this country. Yes, I know that you have trouble believing that. You don't want to believe it, so you tend not to.

"Widespread sex trafficking in children?", you may be saying to yourself. "Sure, it happens overseas in places like Thailand and Moldova, and while there may be some of it here there's not that much of it in our country."

Based on a months long investigation and some reportorial digging, I'm here to tell you that you are wrong. We all are. We're in denial.

In covering news for more than 60 years, I'd like to think that few stories shock me anymore. But this is one of them. We ran across it late last year and the more we dug, the more disturbing it became.

Eighty-year-old men paying a premium to violate teenage girls, sometimes supplied by former drug gangs now into child sex trafficking big time? You've got to be kidding. Nope. That's happening and a lot more along the same lines.

The business is booming. One of the worst areas for it runs along lines running roughly from Seattle to Portland, to San Francisco and Los Angeles, to Las Vegas. But no place in the country is immune.

To pick just one example among many, Portland, Oregon is without doubt one of the nation's treasures. It has been voted one of the best places to live and work. But according to police, the city and its outlying communities has become a hub for the sexual exploitation of children. In a recent nationwide sting by Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, Portland ranked second in the country for the number of rescued child prostitutes. And according to Doug Justus, the workhorse sergeant in charge of Portland's tiny Vice Detail, many of the children caught up in this are middle class kids from the area...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT HuffingtonPost.com

WATCH DAN RATHER'S VIDEO REPORT HERE.

Iraq: New Report Exposes Prostitution and Trafficking of Women and Girls

2010-05-25T15:13:00.000-07:00

IRAQ - A report researched and published by the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) has been published this month. The report exposes the growing problem of prostitution and trafficking of women and girls both within and out of the country of Iraq. As well, the report considers women who were already being prostituted before the war, and examines the prostitution/trafficking problem by historical and political era. -SG

The report begins:

In spite of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) background on women's rights, we did not expect nor comprehend the extent of the problem when we received reports of the kidnapping of women and girls in Baghdad in May 2003. When we started to gather reports from Baghdad neighborhoods the following summer, the numbers were shocking. We expressed our dismay to the media and fearing that a new and vicious era has attacked the women of Iraq. OWFI learned that trafficking of women is the hidden face of war, insecurity and chaos.

In those days, we sympathized with women who were forced or maybe sold into prostitution. We did not have the same consideration for women who were already prostituted in brothels. We thought of them as the unfortunate margins of the society. It was only in 2006, that we noticed an epidemic rise in the number of women who prostituted for a living, whether in formal brothels, in regular working places, or in a hidden neighborhood hideaway. The numbers were obviously no longer something we could consider an unfortunate marginal minority. It was only then that we, in OWFI, decided to investigate the extent prostitution in Iraq, in order to better understand the underground industry of trafficking which thrives on the exploitation of women's flesh.

READ THE FULL REPORT AT EqualityInIraq.com (opens as a PDF)

South Africa: Prostitutes Flock to World Cup

2010-05-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

Schalk van Zuydam/AP

A train passes people in the township of Khayelitsha situated on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, Wednesday. The World Cup 2010 kicks off in South Africa next month, and what awaits hundreds of thousands of visitors is a nation of contrasts.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - As with the 2006 World Cup in Germany, a rampant sex trade is of concern to human rights groups ahead of the World Cup 2010 in South Africa, which kicks off next month. Prostitutes, many from impoverished Zimbabwe, are arriving to cash in on an estimated 500,000 visiting fans.

Zimbabwe's sex workers are deserting their country for greener pastures in South Africa as the World Cup 2010 draws nearer, causing human rights and church groups worldwide to call for measures to curb human trafficking and prostitution.

But the economic promise offered by the arrival of some 500,000 World Cup foreign fans is already attracting impoverished workers.

"If ever there was time to make money, this is the right time," says Shuvai, a Zimbabwean commercial sex worker working at Maxime Hotel in Johannesburg.

The 22-year-old says she arrived in Johannesburg on March 27 with eight fellow prostitutes from Zimbabwe, north of the Limpopo River. She says that she came because of all the international visitors for the World Cup, June 11 - July 11.

The event is no stranger to the sex trade. The 2006 World Cup in Germany, where brothels and prostitution is legalized, brought on an additional influx of an estimated 40,000 sex workers – plus a lot of criticism from rights groups. South Africa's Central Drug Central Authority has also estimated that 40,000 sex workers will come to Johannesburg for the 2010 World Cup, though the agency gives no reasoning for this figure.

A check of eight popular Johannesburg hotels – Maxime Hotel, Royal Hotel, Hillbrow Inn, Ambassador Hotel, Diplomat Hotel, Little Rose Hotel, Summit Hotel, and Orion Devonshire Hotel – and others in Sandton, Fourways, Crego, Rosebank, Midrand, and Boksburg showed them to be filled with newly arrived prostitutes, most of them from Zimbabwe.

Hotel employees also say they have seen a recent influx of prostitutes.

"From the look of the fully booked hotels around Johannesburg and Pretoria, we think these female sex workers could exceed 40,000," says one hotel general manager, declining to be identified. "There are some from outside Africa from as far as China, Pakistan, India, Hong Kong, and Venezuela, who are here for prostitution."

Young prostitutes appear to be organized into groups led by a elder women who smuggles the girls here from Zimbabwe, says Ushe Nyahunzvi, a man from Zimbabwe who works at the Hillbrow Inn...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT CSMonitor.com

Iran: Trafficking Girls Has Become an Industry

2010-05-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

IRAN - A joint research conducted between two independent organizations in Iran, the Center for Cooperative Women’s Affairs and the Committee for the Defense of Victims of Violence indicates the skyrocketing trend of kidnapping and trafficking Iranian women and girls as slaves, to neighboring countries such as the UAE, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as Europe and Asian countries.

The result of this research which has been published (in Persian) indicates that the traffickers and slave traders lure girls and young women to places such as parks and other recreation areas in the guise of friendship or courtship, promising these young women who are generally in search of a better life, an easy way out of the country, jobs with decent salaries and generally a higher standard of living.

Elham Aaraam-Nia, sociologist reports: “The human traffickers usually promise to help these women in exchange for the use of the women’s passports to export goods.” That way having deceived the young women with these promises and a small sum of money, they get them onto planes or cars and legally transport them over the borders and out of Iran.
Many of the girls are runaways who leave home due to abject pressures on the home front. In 2005 informal statistics taken by women’s groups inside Iran indicated 300,000 runaway girls in Iran...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Planet-Iran.com

Africa: Cultural Attitudes and Rumors Are Lasting Obstacles to Safe Sex

2010-05-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

BWINDI, UGANDA - In a nameless mud-walled bar, over a lunch of roast goat, bananas and Bell beer, a group of AIDS counselors gathers to discuss one question: Why is it so hard to practice safe sex here?

The AIDS crisis seems hopeless because of the new infection rate. For every 100 Africans put on treatment, 250 get infected. Globally, 7,400 people are infected every day.

In the 1980s, Uganda earned renown for pushing its infection rate to 6 percent from 18 percent. Many here still remember the pounding drums on the radio and the slogans “Practice ABC” and “zero grazing” — no extramarital sex.

But infection rates are creeping back up.

Casual sex is on the rise, epidemiological surveys say. Condom use, never very high, has dropped. Even among people who know they are infected, only 30 percent consistently use condoms.

Donors sometimes blame their own flawed efforts. For example, the annual supply of condoms in Africa still amounts to only four per adult male.

But the counselors here — all of whom were infected — blamed no one but themselves and their neighbors.

They were all educated, fluent in English — former teachers, a former army officer, a hospital bookkeeper. But Bwindi, like much of Uganda, is made up mostly of subsistence farmers.

“Many people are just ignorant,” said Gervis Muhumuza, 44. “They have low education, and so many misconceptions. Minus the elite class in Kampala and a few others, nobody is using condoms.”

The 2006 Demographic and Health Survey of 11,000 Ugandans found that 99 percent had heard of AIDS, but only about a third had “comprehensive knowledge” — that is, they could correctly say whether it was spread by mosquitoes, by food or by witchcraft; whether it could be prevented by condoms; and whether a healthy-looking person could have it...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

VIEW A SLIDESHOW ABOUT AIDS IN UGANDA HERE.

Africa: At Front Lines, AIDS War is Falling Apart

2010-05-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Dinavance Kamukama, 28, front right, with her cousins in Kampala, Uganda. She is on a waiting list for AIDS medication

KAMPALA, UGANDA - On the grounds of Uganda’s biggest AIDS clinic, Dinavance Kamukama sits under a tree and weeps.

Her disease is probably quite advanced: her kidneys are failing and she is so weak she can barely walk. Leaving her young daughter with family, she rode a bus four hours to the hospital where her cousin Allen Bamurekye, born infected, both works and gets the drugs that keep her alive.

But there are no drugs for Ms. Kamukama. As is happening in other clinics in Kampala, all new patients go on a waiting list. A slot opens when a patient dies.

“So many people are being supported by America,” Ms. Kamukama, 28, says mournfully. “Can they not help me as well?”

The answer increasingly is no. Uganda is the first and most obvious example of how the war on global AIDS is falling apart.

The last decade has been what some doctors call a “golden window” for treatment. Drugs that once cost $12,000 a year fell to less than $100, and the world was willing to pay.

In Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely as a result of American generosity. But the golden window is closing.

Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. In Kenya next door, grants to keep 200,000 on drugs will expire soon. An American-run program in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. There have been drug shortages in Nigeria and Swaziland. Tanzania and Botswana are trimming treatment slots, according to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

The collapse was set off by the global recession’s effect on donors, and by a growing sense that more lives would be saved by fighting other, cheaper diseases. Even as the number of people infected by AIDS grows by a million a year, money for treatment has stopped growing...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

Vatican: Nuns Launch Anti-Trafficking Campaign, World Cup

2010-05-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

A poster for the awareness campaign to fight human trafficking during the June 11-July 11 World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa.

(CNS/courtesy of Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference)

VATICAN CITY - An international network of women's religious orders has launched a worldwide awareness campaign aimed at preventing human trafficking during the June 11-July 11 World Cup soccer tournament in South Africa.

The campaign titled, "2010 Should Be About the Game," has been targeting fans, religious leaders, potential victims of trafficking and the general public -- warning them about the risks and urging them to spread the word.

Using the 2010 World Cup to exploit vulnerable women, children and men for slave labor, the sex industry or the drug trade is "an outright perversion of the spirit and ethical dimension of sport as well as of the idea and dignity of the human person," said Salesian Sister Bernadette Sangma.

Sister Sangma, who coordinates the anti-trafficking project of the International Union of Superiors General, and others spoke at a Vatican news conference May 6.

A similar anti-trafficking campaign coordinated by the superiors general and the International Organization for Migration was highly successful during the 2006 World Cup in Germany, said Stefano Volpicelli, a migration office official who has been working with the sisters...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT CatholicNews.com

Egypt: UN Special Rapporteur Warns of Trafficking Increase

2010-05-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

CAIRO, EGYPT - The UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Ms. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo (left), warned that Egypt faces growing trends in various forms of trafficking, despite commendable efforts by the Government and urged the Egyptian authorities to step up its efforts in the fight against human trafficking.

“There is a growing trend of sexual and economic exploitation of young Egyptian girls by their families and brokers, who execute marriages that are also popularly known as ‘seasonal or temporary’ marriage,” said the independent expert, noting that these trends also include other forms of sexual exploitation and prostitution, as well as child labour and domestic servitude.

During her fact-finding mission from 11 to 21 April, Ms. Ezeilo found “indications that trafficking for forced marriages, forced labour, transplantation of human organs and body tissues may be much more than current estimates.” Further, she noted that the incidence of internal trafficking is much higher than transnational trafficking. However, she warned that the absence of accurate data on trafficking in persons has made it impossible to measure the magnitude of human trafficking in Egypt.

In this context, the Special Rapporteur reminded the Government of the dynamic nature of human trafficking: “Trafficking in persons knows no borders and every country is affected either as a source, transit and/or destination,” she said, noting that Egypt has been variously described as a transit country, but it may also be a source and a destination country.

The UN independent expert, who visited Cairo, Alexandria, Hawamdia and Sharm el-Sheikh during the mission, added there is a “general lack of awareness and knowledge” about human trafficking in the country, and that its forms and manifestation are not well understood.

Ms. Ezeilo also noted the lack of infrastructure and services specifically designed for assisting and rehabilitating trafficking victims, such as shelters and hotlines, and limited participation of and consultation with civil society organizations in formulating anti-trafficking policies and programmes...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT OHCHR.org

CD Exclusive: Interview with Photographer, Mimi Chakarova

2010-04-28T13:36:00.000-07:00

Mimi Chakarova is a Bulgarian-born photographer who has traveled the world in an effort to give a face and a voice to the silent victims of sex trafficking. She teaches photography at the University of California Berkeley, and is currently touring her exhibit The Price of Sex - an eye-opening, multimedia presentation in which sex trafficking victims from Moldova and Albania tell their stories.

Mimi recently participated in an email interview with Captive Daughters' Sarah Gonzales, in which she explains how she gains access to trafficking victims, relates things she has learned in her travels and addresses misconceptions commonly held about sex trafficking.

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT CaptiveDaughters.org

NY: New Law Expunges Trafficking Victims' Records

2010-04-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK -- A bill that would allow former victims of sex trafficking the ability to expunge crimes from their record was passed in the Assembly last month. The bill would give the victims of sex trafficking a fresh start.

The bill (S.4429/ A.7670) sponsored by Sen. Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, who chair their house's health committees, was re-introduced into the Assembly in January after being passed last June. The bill is now in the Codes Committee in the Senate.

Sex trafficking is broadly defined under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, which is a federal act that defines sex trafficking and provides protection to victims of human trafficking. It is broadly defined due to the fact that it is hard to provide evidence proving someone is a victim of human trafficking.

The bill would allow individuals who have been convicted of prostitution or loitering for the purpose of engaging in prostitution to have the charges vacated from their records if they have been victims of sex trafficking...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LegislativeGazette.com

Mimi Chakarova Exhibit Comes to San Francisco

2010-04-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

Vika was trafficked to Dubai. Her clients were as young as twelve and as old as eighty-three. She was almost nineteen when she was sold and forced to have sex with as many as thirty men a day. At the time this photo was taken, Vika was living in a shelter for trafficked girls. (From "The Price of Sex," photographed by Mimi Chakarova in Moldova)

Photographer, Mimi Chakarova will exhibit her "The Price of Sex" show at San Francisco's Fifty Crow's Gallery.

The exhibit opens April 15 and runs through May 15.

View a slideshow of her photography.

Iceland: 'Women Are Not For Sale'

2010-03-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Johanna Sigurdardottir, prime minister of Iceland.

Photograph: Bob Strong/REUTERS

ICELAND -- Iceland is fast becoming a world-leader in feminism. A country with a tiny population of 320,000, it is on the brink of achieving what many considered to be impossible: closing down its sex industry.

While activists in Britain battle on in an attempt to regulate lapdance clubs – the number of which has been growing at an alarming rate during the last decade – Iceland has passed a law that will result in every strip club in the country being shut down. And forget hiring a topless waitress in an attempt to get around the bar: the law, which was passed with no votes against and only two abstentions, will make it illegal for any business to profit from the nudity of its employees.

Even more impressive: the Nordic state is the first country in the world to ban stripping and lapdancing for feminist, rather than religious, reasons. Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold." When I asked her if she thinks Iceland has become the greatest feminist country in the world, she replied: "It is certainly up there. Mainly as a result of the feminist groups putting pressure on parliamentarians. These women work 24 hours a day, seven days a week with their campaigns and it eventually filters down to all of society."

The news is a real boost to feminists around the world, showing us that when an entire country unites behind an idea anything can happen. And it is bound to give a shot in the arm to the feminist campaign in the UK against an industry that is both a cause and a consequence of gaping inequality between men and women.

According to Icelandic police, 100 foreign women travel to the country annually to work in strip clubs. It is unclear whether the women are trafficked, but feminists say it is telling that as the stripping industry has grown, the number of Icelandic women wishing to work in it has not. Supporters of the bill say that some of the clubs are a front for prostitution – and that many of the women work there because of drug abuse and poverty rather than free choice. I have visited a strip club in Reykjavik and observed the women. None of them looked happy in their work.

So how has Iceland managed it? To start with, it has a strong women's movement and a high number of female politicans. Almost half the parliamentarians are female and it was ranked fourth out of 130 countries on the international gender gap index (behind Norway, Finland and Sweden). All four of these Scandinavian countries have, to some degree, criminalised the purchase of sex (legislation that the UK will adopt on 1 April). "Once you break past the glass ceiling and have more than one third of female politicians," says Halldórsdóttir, "something changes. Feminist energy seems to permeate everything."

Johanna Sigurðardottir is Iceland's first female and the world's first openly lesbian head of state. Guðrún Jónsdóttir of Stígamót, an organisation based in Reykjavik that campaigns against sexual violence, says she has enjoyed the support of Sigurðardottir for their campaigns against rape and domestic violence: "Johanna is a great feminist in that she challenges the men in her party and refuses to let them oppress her."

Then there is the fact that feminists in Iceland appear to be entirely united in opposition to prostitution, unlike the UK where heated debates rage over whether prostitution and lapdancing are empowering or degrading to women. There is also public support: the ban on commercial sexual activity is not only supported by feminists but also much of the population. A 2007 poll found that 82% of women and 57% of men support the criminalisation of paying for sex – either in brothels or lapdance clubs – and fewer than 10% of Icelanders were opposed.

Jónsdóttir says the ban could mean the death of the sex industry. "Last year we passed a law against the purchase of sex, recently introduced an action plan on trafficking of women, and now we have shut down the strip clubs. The Nordic countries are leading the way on women's equality, recognising women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale."

Strip club owners are, not surprisingly, furious about the new law. One gave an interview to a local newspaper in which he likened Iceland's approach to that of a country such as Saudi Arabia, where it is not permitted to see any part of a woman's body in public. "I have reached the age where I'm not sure whether I want to bother with this hassle any more," he said.

Janice Raymond, a director of Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, hopes that all sex industry profiteers feel the same way, and believes the new law will pave the way for governments in other countries to follow suit. "What a victory, not only for the Icelanders but for everyone worldwide who repudiates the sexual exploitation of women," she says.

Jónsdóttir is confident that the law will create a change in attitudes towards women. "I guess the men of Iceland will just have to get used to the idea that women are not for sale."

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE AT Guardian.co.uk

Understanding Islamic Feminism: A Fascinating Interview

2010-03-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

We came upon this interview on the Madrasa Reforms in India blog. It's a bit long, but a very interesting insight into the modern Feminist movement in Islamic nations. The intro is below followed by the link to continue reading the Q and A.

Born in Iran and now based in London, Ziba Mir Hosseini, an anthropologist by training, is one of the most well-known scholars of Islamic Feminism. She is the author of numerous books on the subject, including Marriage on Trial: A Study of Family Law in Iran and Morrocco (l.B.Tauris, 1993) and Islam and Gender, the Religious Debate in Contemporary Islam (Princeton, 1999). She is presently associated with the Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

In this interview with Yoginder Sikand she talks about the origins and prospects of Islamic feminism as an emancipatory project for Muslim women and as a new, contextually-relevant way of understanding Islam...

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW AT MadrasaReforms.Blogspot.com

Asia: WWII "Comfort Women" Were Victims of Sexual Slavery

2010-03-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Former “comfort woman” Lee Yong-Soo (L) stands beside her supporters holding portraits of Philippine, South Korean and Chinese comfort women who were sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II, at a protest held in front of the Japanese parliament in Tokyo. Japan on 27 June 2007 brushed aside calls from US lawmakers for a fresh apology to wartime sex slaves, even as the former “comfort women” renewed their demands for Tokyo to acknowledge their plight. Japan said the US move to pass a resolution calling for an “unambiguous” apology from Japan for the coercion of women into army brothels during World War II would not damage relations between the two allies. Inset: Recruitment advertisements for comfort women in the Japanese Imperial Army.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AND VIEW MORE PHOTOS AT WorldCulturePictoral.com

US: Florida Modern Day Slavery Museum on Tour

2010-03-25T14:16:00.000-07:00

The Florida Modern Day Slavery Museum is touring throughout the state of Florida until April 15. Check their schedule to learn when it will be in a town near you.

The Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum consists of a cargo truck outfitted as a replica of the trucks involved in a recent slavery operation (U.S. v. Navarrete, 2008), accompanied by displays on the history and evolution of slavery in Florida.

The museum's central focus is on the phenomenon of modern-day slavery -- its roots, the reasons it persists, and its solutions. The exhibits were developed in consultation with workers who have escaped from forced labor operations as well as leading academic authorities on slavery and labor history in Florida.

For more information about a specific tour stop, contact the person listed as the contact in the table below.

For an excellent preview of the museum, check out this Ft. Myers News-Press article (2/28/10):

"Modern slavery in spotlight: Immokalee coalition debuts mobile museum"

Click here to visit the Slavery Museum News Page for all the latest news from the road

Schedule: Click here to see the museum tour itinerary

Click here to download the museum's accompanying booklet (PDF)

Click here for the museum press advisory

EU: Parliament Adopts New Anti-Trafficking Resolutions

2010-02-24T17:00:00.000-08:00

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT - Victims of human trafficking, especially women and children, should receive protection and "unconditional" assistance, demanded the EP in a resolution adopted on Wednesday. The victims should be entitled to free legal aid, the penalties for traffickers should be rethought and ways must be found to discourage demand for services supplied by the victims, say MEPs.

The fight against trafficking in human beings must stay high on the EU agenda during times of economic and financial crisis, stresses the resolution. According to Europol’s assessment for 2009, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation has not decreased and trafficking for forced labour is increasing.

Trafficking takes many forms. It is linked to sexual exploitation, forced labour, the illegal trade in human organs, begging, illegal adoptions and domestic work. Of the identified victims of trafficking, 79% are women and girls.

Further EU action in this field should focus on the protection of victims, say MEPs, by ensuring that assistance to victims is “unconditional”, that a victim’s consent to exploitation is always deemed irrelevant and that victims are entitled to assistance irrespective of their willingness to cooperate in criminal proceedings.

According to the EP, victims should receive all possible help from the moment they are identified as such, including access to at least a temporary residence permit, irrespective of their willingness to cooperate in criminal proceedings, and simplified access to the labour market, including the provision of training and other forms of upskilling. The EP also asks for a simplified family reunification policy for victims, particularly where this is required for their protection, access to appropriate secure accommodation, including the provision of a food/subsistence allowance, to emergency medical treatment, to counselling services, translation and interpretation where appropriate, help contacting family and friends, and access to education for children.

Free legal aid should also be given to the victims, which “is essential to enable them to escape the situation of coercion in which they find themselves, bearing in mind that they lack financial means and would thus be unable to pay for such assistance”.

Further prevention and action could also focus on the users of services supplied by trafficked people. MEPs call for massive awareness-raising campaigns targeting both potential victims of trafficking and potential buyers of services from trafficked persons...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Europarl.europa.eu

READ THE SPECIFICS OF THE RESOLUTIONS HERE

Haiti: Fake Lawyer to Imprisoned Americans Actually a Wanted Sex Trafficker

2010-02-24T15:48:00.000-08:00

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Jorge Puello falsely portrayed himself as a lawyer in Haiti and is now at large.

HAITI - As the 10 Americans imprisoned in Haiti for trying to remove children from the country awaited a decision on their fate Monday, the legal woes of the man who falsely portrayed himself as the group's lawyer mounted.

The one-time legal adviser, who calls himself Jorge Puello, now acknowledges that he faces sex trafficking charges in El Salvador under the name Jorge Anibal Torres Puello. He remained at large on Monday, as Dominican, Salvadoran and American law enforcement officials worked with Interpol to interview his relatives and search border and immigration records to find him.

Mr. Puello is wanted by the police in at least four countries in connection with charges including sex trafficking of girls and women, and making counterfeit documents and violating parole.

The Salvadoran police unveiled a sex trafficking ring last May in which they said Mr. Puello was helping to bring women and girls from Central America and the Caribbean into El Salvador and luring them into prostitution through offers of modeling and office jobs. Nude and semi-nude photographs were taken of women and girls and put on Internet sites, the police said.

The case against Mr. Puello broke open when three under-age Nicaraguan girls escaped from a house where they said they had been held captive for up to ten days by Mr. Puello's wife, Ana Josefa Galvarina Ramirez Orellana, and another man, according to Jorge Callejas, head of the Salvadoran border police...

READ THE FULL STORY AT NYTimes.com

US: Western Union Settles in Border Wire-Transfers Case

2010-02-24T15:44:00.000-08:00

UNITED STATES - Western Union will pay $94 million to settle a long-running legal battle with the state of Arizona over whether the company allowed its money transfers to be used to send proceeds from human trafficking and drug smuggling to Mexico, officials announced Thursday (Feb. 11, 2010).

The settlement includes $50 million that will help law enforcement operations in border states fight money laundering. Western Union has also agreed to beef up its internal procedures to stop its wire transfers from being exploited.

"Attacking the flow of illicit funds from the United States to smuggling cartels in Mexico is fundamental to our goal of crushing the cartels," Arizona Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard said.

David Schlapbach, executive vice president and general counsel of Western Union, said in a statement: "Assisting law enforcement in its efforts to combat illegal activity serves the public interest on both sides of the border and helps protect those who use our services."

The settlement resolves a legal battle that started in 2006. Goddard's office was in the midst of a years-long investigation of human traffickers when it filed papers to seize all transfers of more than $500 headed to the Mexican state of Sonora, Arizona's southern neighbor...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LATimes.com

US: Sex Trafficking Convictions & Indictments Oct-Feb

2010-02-24T15:14:00.000-08:00

Below is a list of federal sex trafficking convictions or indictments in the United States from the last five months. Each case has a link to a further story: (Thanks to the US Department of Justice, Trafficking Prosecution Unit for sharing this with us.)

On February 3, 2010, defendant Miguel Angel Rugerio was sentenced in federal district court in Atlanta, Georgia, to sixty months in prison for his role in a sex trafficking conspiracy. He pled guilty to the offense on October 29, 2009. The defendant and his co-conspirators were charged in United States v. Rugerio with engaging in a scheme to lure young, vulnerable victims from Mexico on promises of a better life, and then to use threats, assaults, and psychological coercion to compel the victims into prostitution for the defendants’ profit.

Last week, on January 28, 2010, a defendant was sentenced in United States v. Cooney in the Eastern District of Arkansas to 90 months’ imprisonment pursuant to his guilty plea on one count of sex trafficking. His co-defendant, who pled guilty on October 23, 2009, in connection with the sex trafficking scheme that targeted U.S. citizen victims, is awaiting sentencing.

Also last week, on January 25, 2010, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Mendez affirmed the 50-year sentence of a sex trafficker who was charged in the Western District of Tennessee in a scheme to lure young women and girls from Mexico on false promises of legitimate jobs, and then force them into prostitution, abusing them both physically and sexually and confiscating all their earnings. The affirmance in Mendez came shortly after another co-defendant in that case, Cristina Andres Perfecto, was sentenced on December 24, 2009 to 190 months for her role in the sex trafficking operation. A total of eleven defendants were convicted in connection with the case.

At the conclusion of a three-day sex trafficking trial, a San Diego, California jury returned convictions on January 8, 2010, on ten counts, including two counts of sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, for luring young Mexican victims into the United States and compelling them into prostitution through intimidation, fear, and psychological coercion. The defendant in that case, United States v. Zitlalpopoca-Hernandez, is scheduled to be sentenced in April.

On December 17, 2009, a federal grand jury in Anchorage, Alaska indicted four co-defendants in United States v. Mujahid, on sex trafficking and related charges arising from a criminal enterprise that compelled U.S. citizen victims, both adults and minors, into prostitution, using threats, physical assaults, and sexual assaults to control the victims if they disobeyed or attempted to leave, and requiring the victims to turn over the proceeds to the defendants.

On November 17, 2009, defendant Consuelo Carreto Valencia was sentenced to 121 months in prison for her role in the Carreto family sex trafficking ring that compelled young Mexican women and girls into prostitution in New York, for the profit of the defendants, using threats, physical assaults, psychological manipulation, and control over the victims’ children to hold the victims in fear and under the defendants’ control. The two lead defendants in the case, Carreto Valencia’s sons, had each been sentenced to fifty years’ imprisonment, preceding Carreto Valencia’s extradition from Mexico. On October 28, 2009, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lead defendants’ convictions and fifty-year sentences.

Moldova: Bringing Moldova's Women Into the Democratization Process

2010-02-01T22:32:00.000-08:00

A woman weeps at a center for reabilitating victims of domestic violence in Moldova.

MOLDOVA - Moldova's women remain prime targets for human trafficking and exploitation, and it will take more than just improving Moldova's economy to save them.

Both the blight and the profits of human trafficking in Moldova can be felt everywhere in the small country. Children left in the care of ailing grandparents or abandoned to appalling orphanages in Chisinau represent part of the toll trafficking has taken on families in Moldova. The ostentatious new homes at the edges of poor villages and young men driving luxury cars purchased with foreign remittances illustrate the irresistible lure of the trade.

Trafficking represents more than just the selling of human bodies. It is a painfully clear indication of a government's failure to protect its citizens, to provide basic necessities, and to insure civil rights. Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, bears the scars of poor governance, geopolitical tugs-of-war, and internal ethnic struggles.

But it is Moldova's women who are suffering the most in these struggles. If trafficking is to be abated, if Moldova is to get back on its feet economically and politically, and if civil society and democracy are to be strengthened, Moldova needs to pay attention to the rights and democratic responsibilities of women...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

Nepal: Supreme Court Grills NGO Over Claims of Sexual Exploitation of Women

2010-02-01T22:21:00.000-08:00

KATHMANDU, NEPAL - Supreme Court has issued show cause notice to 17 Government Officers based on the complaint filed in the Court by Samrakshak Samuha Nepal (SASANE).

SASANE* had filed contempt of court cases at the Supreme Court against these government offices for flouting the directives issued in 2065 BS by the Court to control sexual exploitation of working women occurring in places such as dance restaurants, cabin, Dohari, massage parlor and dance bar and inflicting more pain on the women.

A single bench of Justice Tap Bahadur Magar gave the order to issue the show cause notice, where Advocates Bagala Regmi, Shyam Pokharel and Ram Raut presented the case on behalf of Pooja Dhimal for SASANE.

Ministry of Women, Children and Social welfare has estimated that number of cabin, Dohori, dance restaurants and massage parlors that are dispersed in different parts of Kathmandu Valley is 1200. Around 50,000 workers are engaged in these businesses and it is estimated that among them 80 percent are women, SASANE stated in a press release today.

Women from the age of 12 to 30 are engaged in the employment, they are forced to engage in unwilling sexual activities and they have to bear the verbal, physical and psychological abuses by customers and managers and helpless women are forced to engage in unethical and disgraceful activities and even sexual intercourse by entrepreneurs and customers under undue influence, greed, and coercion beyond the work-period, the Ministry has stated this in a report.

There is enhanced possibility of trafficking of women working in such work-place and 52.5 percent of them are seduced and incited by persons engaged in trafficking stating that they would seek good jobs in other countries including Hong Kong, Dubai and Saudi Arabia, the Ministry has further stated in the report...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT eKantipur.com

*Captive Daughters was pleased to award our 2009 Annapurna Activists Award to SASANE's director, Shyam Kumar Pokharel, and supports SASANE in their complaint to the Nepal court.

Great Resource: Stop Violence Against Women - stopvaw.org

2010-02-01T22:16:00.000-08:00

StopVAW.org - The Stop Violence Against Women website is a forum for information, advocacy and change in the promotionof women's human rights in countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

StopVAW.org's section on Trafficking

The Coalition for Adolescent Girls

2010-02-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

A fantastic organization that focuses on the health, education and well-being of adolescent girls in poor countries - the most solidly proven method of preventing sex trafficking.

Check them out today: www.coalitionforadolescentgirls.org

UK: Stag Parties 'Fuel Sex Trafficking'

2010-01-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - Prague, Amsterdam, Riga, Krakow, they have all become popular destinations for the British stag party industry. But some of the estimated £500m spent each year is also finding its way to criminal gangs trafficking women for the sex trade.

The British stag party has changed in the past 10 years. The drink down the pub with dad or your mates is gone. It has been replaced with three or four nights in a foreign city, far from prying eyes and geared to meet the stag party's every desire.

And that is often much more than a visit to a strip club. For a large number of stags, visiting a prostitute has also become part of the ultimate lads' weekend.

Prague has 70 brothels and numerous strip clubs. It is not hard to find some of the half a million stag visitors, many British, that the Prague tourist board say visit every year. I found them at every sex establishment I went to.

There was a strip party bus, lap-dancing, and even a brothel that offers free sex provided you agree to be filmed. And many of the British stag groups had at least some, if not all, members buying sexual services.

A local charity worker was in no doubt that British stag parties coming to Prague had increased local demand for sexual services.

"If a British stag sleeps with women in a brothel or sleeps with her on the streets it could be a women brought… because of the sex industry, to be trafficked there from any part of the world."

Criminal gangs

The Czech Republic has long been a transit point for the trafficking of women in and out, and I wanted to find out how easy it would be to buy trafficked women for the sex trade.

Through contacts in the criminal underworld, we managed to arrange an undercover meeting with a trafficker. Posing as a London brothel owner, I arranged to meet him at a motorway service station.

As I secretly filmed our meeting, it became clear how straightforward the deal would be.
"I have two girls here for you now. That I can give to you. They have papers, they can travel you know, no criminal record, anything," he told me.

In the world of international sex trafficking, the leasing of girls has become common and it is big business.

"One girl makes me 90,000 krona (3,500 euros, £3,119) a month - around 50,000 euros (£44,561) a year. You give me 3,500 euros per month and I will come and visit you every month in England and collect the money every month."

The meeting lasted 20 minutes, and I could have bought two women...

WATCH THE VIDEO OF THIS MEETING HERE

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT News.BBC.co.uk

UNICEF: Legislative Reform Initiative for Children

2010-01-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

Harmonizing National Legislation with International Human Rights Instruments

© UNICEF/HQ04-0604/Giacomo Pirozzi
While virtually every country in the world has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), children's rights are frequently not realised. One important aspect of creating an environment within which children's rights will be realised is the creation of an appropriate legislative framework which enshrines their rights. While this is not sufficient to guarantee their rights, and implementation of the law remains a major challenge around the world, getting laws and the mechanisms and institutions for their implementation right is one of the most essential steps to realising children's rights.

UNICEF's Legislative Reform Initiative (LRI) supports efforts for the realisation of the rights enshrined in the CRC and in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). It recognises that legislative reform must go beyond the letter of law to address polices and programming in order to make the laws effective and enforceable. The LRI includes papers and tools which can inform legislative reform efforts and share global experience.

Thematic Papers

Legislative/Policy Papers

Tools

Reports

Haiti: Danger Grows for Girls After the Quake

2010-01-19T15:44:00.000-08:00

All but three girls at Le Foyer des Filles de Dieu orphanage are safe after the earthquake. For impoverished Haitian girls, schools and centres like this all-girls facility offer protection from a constant threat of rape or exploitation.

LE FOYER DES FILLES DE DIEU PHOTO
HAITI - Long before the earthquake struck, long before the schools where they could be safe crumbled, girls and young women were the most vulnerable in Haiti. Now, in the aftermath of a disaster, there are greater fears for girls' safety in a country where hundreds of thousands of children live as indentured slaves and the poorest girls in Port-au-Prince slums are targets of gang rape.

"My worry is we put a lot of effort into bringing relief, but we have to have some protective measures to benefit women and girls to avoid their being victimized and sexually assaulted. It was already difficult in ordinary times," said Gerardo Ducos, Haiti researcher for Amnesty International.

A Haitian women's organization documented 238 rapes in an 18-month period ending June 2008: 140 of those were girls aged 19 months to 18 years.

Prosecutions for rape, which became a criminal offence only in 2005, are pitifully few. The Guardian newspaper reported in a documentary film last year only 12 rape cases went to trial and that the police unit in charge of child protection has only 12 officers for 4 million children.

"I am not able to go to the police because I am really frightened," a girl named Stephanie, who was raped during carnival in February 2007, told Amnesty International. "The attackers really pressured me not to report them although I don't know them. This is all so humiliating. I had to stay quiet."

A girl named Laure described to Amnesty International how her landlord forced her to have sex – sometimes at gunpoint – so her family would not be evicted. When Laure's mother complained to the police, she was beaten up and Laure was raped again...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT TheStar.com

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

2010-01-11T13:41:00.000-08:00

Today, January 11, is the international Human Trafficking Awareness Day.

Today is the day to remember victims of trafficking, to learn more about the terrible practice that occurs throughout the world, to have a conversation about it with your friends, family and co-workers and to continue educating yourself about trafficking.

Here are five things you can do today to promote awareness about trafficking or learn more about it:

1. Visit our website, www.CaptiveDaughters.org and browse the many articles and informational pages.

2. Write a letter to your representatives - asking them what they are doing on trafficking or encouraging them to continue working to fight it.

3. Post "Human Trafficking Awareness Day" as your Facebook status, along with a link to more information such as our website or this blog.

4. Visit the Rescue and Restore website for more information about US trafficking, and learn how to recognize and report a suspected victim of trafficking so they can be helped.

5. Donate money to anti-trafficking groups to assist their ability in fighting this heinous crime against the basic rights of humans.

Anti-Trafficking Alliance Launches Trafficking Awareness Game

2010-01-08T16:45:00.000-08:00

The UK-based Anti-Trafficking Alliance has launched a new online game to educate and raise awareness about sex trafficking.

The interactive teaching tool, meant for men, is called "On the Game in Soho" and involves characters in a pub out for a stag night. The object is to interact with other characters, including possible prostitutes, and raise your "Real Man" status from "Scumbag" to "Living Legend" by making appropriate decisions. Players can win an iPod Touch.

In addition to the game, the ATA has also produced a web-video called "Behind the Smile" that recounts the experiences of real sex trafficking victims.

Documentary: 'Playground' - Child Exploitation in the USA

2009-12-29T14:42:00.000-08:00

Documentary produced by George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Steven Soderbergh and Libby Spears that focuses on the shocking amount of child sexual exploitation within the United States.

To learn more about this documentary, please visit: TheNestFoundation.org

Israel: Traffickers Target Israeli Girls to Replace Foreign Sex Slaves

2009-12-29T14:32:00.000-08:00

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL -- At the start of the new century, Israel found itself with an unexpected and unwanted reputation - as a destination hotspot for sex trafficking. The government took significant measures against this phenomenon, but the success in stamping out the import of women for sex has led to a new problem.

From the security of her Tel Aviv office, Yedida Wolfe dials a number at the bottom of a newspaper advertisement that reads, in Hebrew: "Looking for young liberal women for easy work at great pay!!" The phone is answered by a man named Yossi. He explains that the type of work was sex; Yedida would get to choose with whom, how often, and under what conditions.

"You will have complete control," Yossi tells her. The pair arrange a time to meet.

Wolfe is the Executive Director of the Task Force on Human Trafficking (TFHT). She chose the advert at random from dozens of others just like it that appear daily in a major classifieds supplement published across Israel's major cities.

Until 2007, thousands of women each year were trafficked into Israel for sex, mostly from the former Soviet Union. They were subjected to violence, rape, and public auctions, and forced to have sex with up to 20 men per night, often without any pay.

NGOs and government officials, however, achieved a measure of success two years ago in liberating and rehabilitating the foreign women, frequently identifying them via their missing papers. Many of those saved from the sex trade were subsequently replaced by Israeli women...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Haaretz.com

Internet: Child Exploitation Flourishes in a World Without Borders

2009-12-29T14:25:00.000-08:00

UNITED NATIONS OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS - The figures are devastating. At any one time on the Internet it is estimated there are around three quarters of a million predators searching for sites featuring child pornography. The UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Najat Maalla M’jid (at left) in a report to the latest session of the Human Rights Council says, “there is more and more child pornography on the Internet, becoming what is today a very profitable business, with a worldwide market value estimated at billions of dollars.”

Statistics for cyber child pornography are difficult to find but in her report M’jid points to estimates that over a three year period between 2001 and 2004 the number of sites carrying child pornography nearly doubled to around 480,000. Estimates of the number of children who are victims vary hugely, from ten thousand to 100,000. Pornographic images of children, from babies through to teenagers are posted on the web. Figures cited in the report estimate nearly 20 percent of individuals possessing child pornography had images of babies and children aged under 3 and more than 80 percent had images of children aged between 6 and 12.

The report says most producers of pornographic images of children are known to the victims, in fact more than a third are family members and more than a third of those found guilty of possessing child pornography live with children. More than half of those in possession of child pornography have access to children at home, at work or in their social environment.

The Special Rapporteur draws attention to the life-long consequences of child pornography for the victims themselves. The internet images which will never disappear “compound the consequences of the child abuse, affecting the victims’ recovery and the delivery of services available to them”, she says...

READ THE FULL REPORT AT OHCHR.org

OSCE New Publication on Trafficking

2009-12-29T14:19:00.000-08:00

OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) has released a report entitled: An agenda for change: Implementing the platform for action against human trafficking.

The 2009 Annual Report provides an overview of the activities, achievements and challenges of the Special Representative Eva Biaudet's entire three-year term in office. It sets out the agenda that has guided the Special Representative work from 2007-2009, building upon the Platform for Action described in the 2007 Annual Report.

Full version
English (1.73 MB)

Today is International Human Rights Day

2009-12-10T13:43:00.000-08:00

UNITED NATIONS - “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”. These first few famous words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights established 60 years ago the basic premise of international human rights law. Yet today, the fight against discrimination remains a daily struggle for millions around the globe.

“Our main objective is to help promote discrimination-free societies and a world of equal treatment for all,” says the High Commissioner who this year will mark Human Rights Day in South Africa.

She encourages people everywhere - including the UN family, governments, civil society, national human rights institutions, the media, educators, and individuals - to seize the opportunity of Human Rights Day 2009 to join hands to embrace diversity and end discrimination.

The realisation of all human rights - social, economic and cultural rights as well as civil and political rights – is hampered by discrimination. All too often, when faced with prejudice and discrimination, political leaders, governments and ordinary citizens are silent or complacent.

Yet everyone of us can make a difference. You are encouraged to celebrate Human Rights Day by advocating non-discrimination, organizing activities, raising awareness and reaching out to your local communities on 10 December and throughout 2010...

TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS, AND LEARN WHAT EVENTS ARE GOING ON TODAY, PLEASE VISIT THE SITE OF THE:

United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights

Israel: Flourishing Palestinian Sex Trade Exposed in New Report

2009-12-10T13:28:00.000-08:00

ISRAEL - Young Palestinian women are being forced to into prostitution in brothels, escort services, and private apartments in Ramallah and Jerusalem, including areas inhabited by Jews, according to a report released Wednesday (12-9-09). The Palestinian organization SAWA (All Women Together Today and Tomorrow) published the paper, the first of its kind, urging Palestinian society to break its silence over its sex industry.

The report was compiled with support by UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, which allotted resources for research on the subject. SAWA conducted research and interviews for the study in the beginning of 2008, but for a variety of reasons has only now been published. The report, which is titled "Trafficking and Forced Prostitution of Palestinian Women and Girls: Forms of Modern Day Slavery," was released in conjunction with the "Global 16-day Campaign to Combat Violence Against Women."

The report claims that women are trafficked from different areas of the West Bank, in particular urban areas, as well as from the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. Women from Eastern Europe who are sold into the sex trade in Israel are also occasionally brought to the West Bank, where they work in designated apartments. There are a number of legally registered hotels and cleaning companies that offer "double services," which include sexual services for men...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Haaretz.com

US: Trafficking of American Native Women is Widespread

2009-12-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

MINNESOTA - Three decades ago, the relatives of an eleven-year-old Native girl in Minnesota forced her to have sex with a man in exchange for alcohol. The story was not front-page news. It was not the subject of a feature-length film with a happy ending. No one intervened. But when she turned eighteen, the police started paying attention. She was arrested and convicted over twenty times for prostitution. Her parents’ addiction became her own, and she entered treatment dozens of times.

At an early age, the girl became one of hundreds, maybe thousands, of Native American children and women forced into prostitution in Minnesota, falling under the radar of social services, the community, and the media.

“If it was a bunch of white, blonde hair, blue-eyed girls, believe me, there would be an end to this,” said Vednita Carter, executive director of Breaking Free, a St. Paul-based nonprofit serving women involved in prostitution.

In September, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center became the first organization in the state to release a report about the widespread trafficking of Native women. The agency hopes its effort will draw attention and funding to Native victims of sexual exploitation.

Advocates say the report’s findings cast little doubt that the situation has already become a crisis. In a sample of 95 Native women seeking services from the resource center, 40 percent reported being the victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

Sixty percent of the women surveyed entered prostitution or pornography before the age of 18. And about one-fifth had been sexually exploited before their thirteenth birthday. When the girls become adults, the exploitation often continues. They remain in prostitution, but the law often no longer views them as victims, but as criminals.

The 126-page report, called Shattered Hearts, written by esearch scientist Alexandra Pierce, focuses on women who live outside of reservations. The report compiles statistics, identifies flaws in the legal system, draws parallels to the historic exploitation of Native people, and makes dozens of suggestions about how to address the problem. Pierce incorporated the Resource Center’s own studies, interviews with social service workers, and available government data...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT TheCircleNews.org

READ MORE ABOUT THE REPORT HERE: MIWRC.org

Trafficking and the Olympics

2009-11-18T16:02:00.000-08:00

A collection of news items regarding the serious problem of sex trafficking during the Olympic games. Many women and girls are brought to the cities where large sporting events take place (e.g. Olympics, World Cups) to meet a demand by visiting fans for prostitution. It is important to be aware of this with the Winter 2010 Games coming up in Vancouver.

Please sign this petition to the Canadian government asking them to enact and enforce better anti-trafficking laws: SIGN PETITION HERE

FROM BBC RADIO - Can mobile phone operators tackle prostitution?

The Mayor of London is asking mobile phone companies to help crack down on prostitution and trafficking in the run up to the Olympics. Research shows that incidents of trafficking ahead of the Athens Olympics rose by nearly 100 per cent. The men behind the sex trade still advertise prostitutes’ services by dropping cards containing mobile numbers into the city’s phone boxes. Now City Hall wants to see an agreement between mobile operators and the police that would see the cards removed and the numbers disconnected. Is it a good idea and will it work? Jane is joined by the Deputy Mayor of London with responsibility for policing, Kit Malthouse, and by Diane Martin, Chair of Lambeth Multi-Agency Prostitution Strategy Group. LISTEN TO THE RADIO SHOW AT BBC.co.uk

FROM THE EPOCH TIMES - 2010 Olympics Could Boost Human Trafficking

Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan is getting heat from activists against human trafficking after a remark last week that he doesn't object to the idea of a legalized "co-op" brothel in the city.

The Committee Against Human Trafficking called on anti-human trafficking activists across the country to swamp Sullivan's office on Tuesday of this week with letters, faxes, emails, packages and phone calls.

The campaign aimed to show the link between the normalization of prostitution and increased human trafficking, and called on Sullivan to oppose legalizing brothels.

The proposal for the brothel came from a group of Vancouver prostitutes who believe legalized brothels would help protect sex-trade workers when visitors flock to Vancouver for the Winter Olympics in 2010.

Big sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Cup soccer tournament are known to generate an increase in prostitution, which in turn leads to a rise in human trafficking...
READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT TheEpochTimes.com

Int'l: Registering the World's Invisible Millions

2009-11-18T15:45:00.000-08:00

This five-year-old girl from Bolivia is one of some 40 million children helped

FROM THE BBC - A birth certificate is a fact of life for many. Yet there are millions of babies born each year who are never registered, depriving them of vital education and health care and leaving them vulnerable to abuse. Plan International has gone some way to reverse this situation, as the BBC's Penny Spiller explains.

Togolese teenager Awawou had overcome the toughest of childhoods to build an education for herself. After years of hard work, and against all the odds, she was about to sit her school exams when she learned she was not eligible because she did not have a birth certificate.
Her parents had died when she was small and she had not been registered at birth. It took Awawou a year of running errands to earn the $10 (£6) she needed to buy the certificate and sit her exams. Now, aged 18, she hopes to become a dressmaker.

Awawou is one of half a billion children who are estimated to be without a birth certificate. It is thought that at least 51 million of the babies born each year are not registered.

Without registration, it is difficult, if not impossible, to gain access to vital services such as health care, education and welfare support, says child rights organisation Plan International.
It also denies them the possibility of voting or getting legal aid.

Children without any record of identification are more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse such as human trafficking and prostitution, being forced into under-age marriages or into becoming child soldiers, the organisation adds...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT News.BBC.co.uk

NY: Emma Thompson Takes a "Journey"

2009-11-18T15:37:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - Oscar-winning actress and writer Emma Thompson is touring the world with an art exhibit she created about sex trafficking. The installation, called "Journey," is made up on seven shipping containers and is based on the experience of Elena, a Moldovan women who was sold into prostitution in London. Thompson brought the project to New York this week.

WATCH THE VIDEO HERE AT WashingtonPost.com

UN: Geneticists Coordinate Action to Fight Against Traffic in Human Beings

2009-11-18T15:34:00.000-08:00

Figures are impressive and, at the same time, shameful for the civilized world of 21st century: according to data from the United Nations through the UN.GIFT programme managed by UNODC/UNDD (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), 161 countries are reported to be affected by human trafficking by being a source, transit and/or destination country. The majority of trafficking victims are between 18 and 24 years of age but an estimated of 1.2 million children are trafficked each year. During the time they are victims of trafficking the 95% experience physical or sexual violence, the 79% are trafficked for sexual exploitation and the 18% are trafficked for forced labour.

Traffic in human beings is a serious and complex problem. It is estimated that by 2010, human trafficking will be the No. 1 crime worldwide, ahead of arms trade and drug trafficking. That is the reason why it requires international collaboration, but specially needs effective measures to combat and deter it, to achieve its final eradication. .

DNA - Prokids Programme was set up in 2004 by the University of Granada (Spain) to fight against human trafficking 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. Its objectives are:

1.To identify the human trafficking victims and return them to their families (reunification), or to the place where they are best protected.
To hamper traffic in human beings thanks to identification of victims
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.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT PhysOrg.com

US: Operation Cross Country Rescues 52 Child Sex Slaves

2009-10-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON D.C. - Federal officials rescued 52 children and arrested nearly 700 people over the last three days in a nationwide crackdown on child prostitution.

Almost 1,600 agents and officers took part in the raids, which followed investigations in 36 cities, according to the FBI, local law enforcement agencies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Included in the arrests were 60 suspected pimps, according to the FBI and local police officials.

Authorities say the youngest victim was 10.

In Southern California, two children were rescued in Riverside, and four adults were arrested, said Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman. Four suspected customers of child prostitutes were arrested in Orange County.

"It is repugnant that children in these times could be subjected to the great pain, suffering and indignity of being forced into sexual slavery for someone else's profit," Assistant Atty. Gen. Lanny A. Breuer said in a statement. He added that the latest raids show that "the scourge of child prostitution still exists on the streets of our cities."

The sweep, dubbed Operation Cross Country, is part of the Innocence Lost National Initiative, started in 2003 to address child sex trafficking in the U.S.

The initiative has rescued nearly 900 children; led to the conviction of 510 pimps, madams and their associates; and seized $3.1 million in assets, according to the FBI...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LATimes.com

NYT: For Runaways, Sex Buys Survival

2009-10-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Nicole Clark, 17, above, at her onetime sleeping spot.

ASHLAND, OREGON - She ran away from her group home in Medford, Ore., and spent weeks sleeping in parks and under bridges. Finally, Nicole Clark, 14 years old, grew so desperate that she accepted a young man's offer of a place to stay. The price would come later.

They had sex, and he soon became her boyfriend. Then one day he threatened to kick her out if she did not have sex with several of his friends in exchange for money.

She agreed, fearing she had no choice. "Where was I going to go?" said Nicole, now 17 and living here, just down the Interstate from Medford. That first exchange of money for sex led to a downward spiral of prostitution that lasted for 14 months, until she escaped last year from a pimp who she said often locked her in his garage apartment for months.

"I didn't know the town, and the police would just send me back to the group home," Nicole said, explaining why she did not cut off the relationship once her first boyfriend became a pimp and why she did not flee prostitution when she had the chance. "I'd also fallen for the guy. I felt trapped in a way I can't really explain."

Most of the estimated 1.6 million children who run away each year return home within a week. But for those who do not, the desperate struggle to survive often means selling their bodies...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

Australia: 95% of People Trafficked Into Country Are Used for Sex

2009-10-28T14:02:00.000-07:00

AUSTRALIA - Almost all people trafficked into Australia are forced into the sex industry, a new report reveals.

Fully 95 per cent of trafficking victims were females made to work as prostitutes, and most came from Southeast Asia.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor responded to the report from the Australian Institute of Criminology by saying much was being done to combat people trafficking from Asia and the Pacific.

"Australia has adopted a whole-of-government response to people trafficking which includes a national policing strategy and specialist police investigation teams, enhanced visa arrangements, a victim support program and regional cooperation efforts," Mr O'Connor said in a statement.

The report said not enough was known about trafficking and more research was required.

"It is widely recognised in crime statistics that a significant number of incidents go unreported," the report said.

"Once a crime is reported to authorities, further legal and non-legal considerations result in fewer cases being investigated. "This process of attrition also applies to trafficking cases, few of which are thought to reach the attention of authorities due to low rates of reporting and the hidden nature of this type of crime."

Between 2004 and 2008, 34 people were charged with trafficking offences but of them only seven were convicted...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT TheAge.com.au

READ THE 102-PAGE AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY TRAFFICKING REPORT (opens as PDF)

Europe: Increased Trafficking in Women Due to EU Tolerance for Prostitution

2009-10-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - According to the UN, 79% of trafficking in human beings is for sexual exploitation. Unsurprisingly therefore, more than 80% of these victims are women. To mark its third Anti-trafficking Day, the EU will hold a Ministerial conference on 19-20 October which will focus on global partnerships from a European security and justice perspective. Commenting on this upcoming event, Brigitte Triems, President of EWL/EPACVAW, says: 'The European Women's Lobby (EWL) and its European Policy Action Centre on Violence Against Women (EPACVAW) regret that the conference will not address trafficking in human beings from a gender equality perspective and tackle the real root causes of trafficking in women for sexual exploitation.'

'It is time for the EU and its Member States, to examine the factors that make them attractive all over the world for trafficking in women for sexual purposes', declares Colette De Troy, EPACVAW Director. 'The EU must recognise that its tolerance for the prostitutional system in Europe, coupled with the persistence of historically unequal power relations between women and men, leads to an amplified acceptance of men's use of and control over women's bodies and therefore an increased intensity of male violence against women'...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT EPACVAW.org

UN: Trafficking Europe In-Depth Report

2009-10-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: the following article on this report notes an interesting and disturbing trend in sex trafficking - many of the traffickers are found to be women. They are forcing other women into sexual servitude. Is this emergent trend an illumination into the hierarchy of the trafficking trade - that the traffickers themselves are forced into trafficking - presupposing that women in their right minds would never traffick other women? Or is it simply another element of the evil that pervades this trade? What do you think? Leave your comments.

UNITED NATIONS OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME (UNODC), VIENNA, AUSTRIA - In the run up to EU anti-trafficking day (18 October), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has issued a report showing that trafficking in persons is an under-detected crime in Europe.

The report, based on UNODC's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons (launched in February 2009), says less people (1 in 100,000) are being convicted for human trafficking in Europe than for rare crimes like kidnapping. Only 9,000 victims were reported in 2006 – around 30 times less than the total estimated number. "Perhaps police are not finding the traffickers and victims because they are not looking for them", said the UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa.

The report shows a high degree of internal trafficking, both domestically within European countries and regionally within the European Union (predominantly from South-eastern to Western Europe). At the same time, European victims represent just a fraction of the total number of victims detected in Europe. Recent trends show a steady decline of flows from
traditional sources, and a marked increase in victims from China and Central Asia.

Most identified victims of human trafficking in Europe are young women, trafficked for sexual exploitation. Around 10% of trafficking victims in Europe are children. There are also detected cases of men in forced labour, like construction and agriculture. "Lives should not be for sale or for rent on a continent that prohibits slavery and forced labour, and prides
itself on upholding human dignity", said Mr. Costa.

Most of the prosecuted traffickers are locals, predominantly men. Where foreign traffickers are present, they are often of the same nationality as the victims. Curiously, for a crime where most victims are women, the number of prosecuted female offenders is higher for human trafficking than for other crimes. "We need to better understand why people traffic their kin, and why women exploit other women", said the head of UNODC.

On a positive note, the report shows that in the past six years since the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children came into force in December 2003, most European countries have criminalized trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labour.

It also highlights the progress that has been made to improve collection of data on human trafficking within the European Union.

READ THE FULL 25-PAGE REPORT: TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS: ANALYSIS ON EUROPE (opens as PDF)

The Failure of Anti-Trafficking Efforts, by Ruchira Gupta

2009-10-28T13:47:00.000-07:00

Ruchira Gupta at the Clinton Global Citizen Award event with actress Demi Moore

[Ruchira Gupta is founder and president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-trafficking organization based in India. She recently won the Clinton Global Citizen Award for her leadership in civil society.]

Naina, a teenager rescued from a brothel in Bihar by my organization, Apne Aap Women Worldwide, once told me: "As long as there are customers, there will always be other little girls that can be bought." Naina is right. India has witnessed an alarming rise in the sex-trafficking of women and girls in recent years.

On May 13, 2009, the Home Secretary of India said in a seminar organized by the Central Bureau of Investigation that there are 1.3 million prostituted children in India right now. Most of them are girls. The National Human Rights Commission of India has stated that the average age of entry into prostitution for young girls is now between nine and twelve.

The fact that the numbers of the trafficked are going up and the ages coming down displays the failure of those government and non-government strategies which only focus on HIV/AIDS management and half hearted rescue operations combined with shelters for victims. These ignore the root cause, which is the demand for women and girls for sexual exploitation. Even the Sept. 19 Ministry of Home Affairs advisory to state governments on combating human trafficking falls short of asking for higher arrests and convictions of buyers and traffickers, though it recognizes that "trafficking in human beings, especially of women and children, is the fastest growing organized crime and an area of concern."

Demand for trafficked people -- from end-users (buyers of prostituted sex) to traffickers who make a profit off the trade (the recruiters, transporters, pimps, brothel owners, money lenders, etc., who form the intricate chain in the organized criminal networks) -- has become the most immediate cause for the expansion of the trafficking industry. But the existing outdated law, Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956, (ITPA), does not address it adequately.

Apne Aap Women Worldwide has been campaigning to have ITPA amended. This survivor-led campaign is seeking to penalize buyers and traffickers. If the numbers of convictions against buyers and traffickers go up, the cost of human trafficking will become untenable. Increased convictions will also restore a sense of justice to the survivors of prostitution.

Countries like Sweden have gone after the traffickers by bringing them to book, confiscating their illegal assets created out of trafficking, making them compensate for the damages and penalizing end-users (buyers of prostituted sex). This has seen a significant decrease in trafficking. In 1999, it was estimated that 125,000 Swedish men bought about 2,500 prostituted women one or more times per year, before the law came into force. By 2002, this figure had fallen to no more than 1,500 women.

In running this campaign, Apne Aap Women Worldwide has come up against some entrenched interests. Ironically, this opposition has included many HIV/AIDS management projects that work in red-light areas and hire pimps and brothel managers as "peer educators" to gain easy access to the brothels for the purpose of condom distribution. They turn a blind eye to the little girls and adult women kept in a system of bondage and control, who cannot say no to unwanted sex let alone unprotected sex. In fact a representative of the National AIDS Control Organization once told me: "If the brothels didn't exist, where will we distribute the condoms?"...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT WSJ.com

Captive Daughters Co-Sponsors Premiere of 'Victory Day' Film in Los Angeles

2009-09-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

Captive Daughters has teamed up with New Media International to promote their new feature-length film, Victory Day. Purchase your tickets (info below) from CaptiveDaughters.org and you will be supporting our non-profit, as well as supporting independent film!

PREMIERE: The movie will premiere in Los Angeles, California, at Laemmle's Royal Theater on November 5 at 7:30pm. The gala premiere includes pre-screening champagne, caviar and gourmet Russian chocolates. The film will be followed by a Q&A with speakers, coffee, tea, cake and cognac. Tickets are $100 and are available for purchase at CaptiveDaughters.org.

SHOWINGS: From November 6 - 12, Victory Day will be shown at Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly HIlls with 27 shows over 7 days. Tickets are $10 and may be purchased at CaptiveDaughters.org.

ABOUT VICTORY DAY

Steeped in intrigue and sabotage, VICTORY DAY is a one-of-a-kind achievement, a modern drama-thriller played out against the beautiful and brutal landscapes of Eastern Europe and Russia from the 1990's to the present.

Sam Cassels (Sean Ramsay), a firebrand journalist with a short fuse has just been expelled from Russia, the adopted homeland that he loves, for punching out the Minister of Finance at a press conference.

Retrenching in Prague, Cassels soon finds that his troubles are only just beginning as he discovers that a Russian Oligarch (Milan Kolik), a man, in Cassels' eyes, clearly guilty for the wars and economic ruin of his country, is unbelievably close at hand. Raging for retribution, exposing the Oligarch - Igralski (Kolik) who is yet unpunished and un-denounced, becomes a suicidal fixation.

Photographing a street prostitute (Natalie Shiyanova) being abused and beaten by sex-slave traffickers, Cassels is drawn deeper into a world entwined with the shadow of the Oligarch. Rescuing her brings the key to a mission that will push him to the very edge of sanity and revenge!

Shot in Russia, the Czech Republic and Australia, the producers of VICTORY DAY have created an aesthetically stunning window into the momentous jolting changes of modern Russia...an insightful story that enchants as much as it reveals.

Directed by: Sean Ramsay
Screenplay by: Sean Ramsay, David Fellows, Tony Weston
Director of Photography: Eric Krambeck BKS

USA - 2009 - 99 minutes

Spain: Street Prostitution Sparks Debate

2009-09-29T13:26:00.000-07:00

Police in Barcelona arresting a prostitute. (From El Pais)

MADRID, SPAIN - Press photographs of prostitutes plying their trade right out on the street have reignited a debate about the practice in Spain, where it has seen a rapid growth over the past 15 years. Traditionally perceived as relatively marginal, prostitution is increasingly seen as "normal", with ever younger men preferring to pay for sex rather than taking the trouble of trying to pick up girls.

Prostitution is again making headlines after the daily newspaper El Pais published pictures of prostitutes and their clients having sex on the street at night in a Barcelona tourist neighbourhood.

Barcelona had become increasingly lax in applying a 2006 municipal ordinance which stipulated fines of up to 750 euros (1,050 dollars) for sex workers or their clients, critics complain. The ordinance was aimed at eradicating such practices from central districts.

Associations representing local residents or the prostitutes themselves urged a legalization of the trade, describing it as the only way to guarantee prostitutes adequate working conditions.

The city, however, only deployed more police to chase the sex workers off the streets in the Raval neighbourhood...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT EarthTimes.org

Film: 'Fatal Promises' Now Playing in NYC

2009-09-18T15:45:00.000-07:00

Documentary film, Fatal Promises, now playing at

Cinema Village in NYC, Sept 16-24

Fatal Promises is an in-depth and honest look into the scourge of Human Trafficking. Through personal stories of victims of trafficking and interviews with politicians, non-governmental organizations and activists, Fatal Promises cleverly juxtaposes the brutal realities of Human Trafficking suffered by victims and battled by activists, with the hollow rhetoric of politicians and pundits who claim to be making significant strides in combating this horrific crime against humanity.

"Fatal Promises" features interviews with Kevin Bales, Gloria Steinman, Emma Thompson and others.

FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO FatalPromises.com

TO BUY TICKETS GO TO CinemaVillage.com

Focus on Ireland: Underaged Teens Trafficked as Sex Workers

2009-09-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

IRELAND - Young teens below the legal age of consent are being trafficked into Ireland for sexual exploitation, new figures show.

A cloak of invisibility now surrounds the sex trade, with criminals operating in a "hidden world" in which women are marketed over the internet, according to the support group Ruhama.

Ireland has become "firmly enmeshed in the global sex trade", the group, which aids women sexually exploited for commercial purposes, has warned.

It also fears more people may get involved in prostitution due to the downturn.

During 2007 and 2008, its newly published report stated there were 341 women directly assisted by the group, including 100 women trafficked into Ireland specifically for prostitution, the majority from Nigeria.

Six of the women were under the age of 18; some were as young as 15 at the time they were lured into prostitution...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Independent.ie

Focus on Ireland: "I knew I had to do sexual things or they would kill me"

2009-09-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

IRELAND - Christine did not know what sex was until one of her clients showed her. She was forced into street prostitution as a teenager by a family member.

"It was terrifying but I knew I had to do sexual things or they would have killed me," the Irish woman said. About a decade after she stopped working the streets, Christine went to Ruhama, a support group for prostitutes, for help as she was still suffering. She is one of the hundreds of women who seek the help of the organisation each year.

Ruhama, which is marking its 20th anniversary, launched its biennial report for 2007 and 2008 in Dublin yesterday.

Christine shared her success story along with advice to other women, as she now begins her final year of university studies and prepares to be married.

"I would say to anyone considering prostitution, do not do it. It affects your whole life and the sadness never goes away. If one feels they are being made to go into prostitution by a family member or a boyfriend, go to the police...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Independent.ie

Focus on Ireland: Increase in Irishwomen Engaged in Street Vice

2009-09-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

IRELAND - The number of Irish women engaging in on-street prostitution has "noticeably increased" in the past few months, according to the outreach organisation Ruhama.

Gerardine Rowley, spokeswoman for the organisation, which supports women working in prostitution, said the increase in on-street activity was probably attributable to the economic crisis.

"There has been an increase in this kind of prostitution, which is a new emerging issue, a factor of which may be increasing poverty."

At the publication yesterday of Ruhama's biennial report, which covers 2007 and 2008, there were also calls for the criminalisation of men who use prostitutes.

Ms Rowley said of the increase in street prostitution over past months: "We know from experience a significant factor leading women into prostitution can be poverty. Some women in dire financial trouble may see no other option."

Outreach workers were seeing some women back on the streets who had left prostitution in the 1990s. "We do have women who come to us struggling and saying, 'We don't want to go back but we have debts and the bills have to be paid'."

She also said the more desperate a woman was to make money, the more likely she was to engage in "high-risk behaviour".

"We know men put pressure on women for unprotected sex."

A significant proportion of the 341 women helped by Ruhama in the two years covered by the report had been trafficked here for prostitution. The greatest proportion are now coming from Africa, particularly Nigeria...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT IrishTimes.com

Focus on Ireland: Charity Reports Rise in Prostitution

2009-09-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Irish television ad produced by Ruhama, an Irish group that helps women affected by trafficking and prostitution

IRELAND - Ireland's underground sex industry is being fuelled by technology as vulnerable young women are forced to work as prostitutes from apartments, Ruhama said today.

The charity said it is harder to reach victims of the sex trade as criminals hold them captive in flats and houses all over the country.

Over the last two years 341 vulnerable women who have been forced into prostitution have been supported by Ruhama. Volunteers believe that number is just the tip of the iceberg, with hundreds more trapped in covert underground operations.

Director of Ruhama Kathleen Fahy said ten years ago prostitution was very visible on the streets of Dublin.

"Today we are dealing with a predominantly indoor and more covert sex trade," said Ms Fahy. "Many women involved in prostitution are controlled by criminals. They are beaten, afraid and see no way out. These criminals now operate in a hidden world and use modern technology to control and market the women."

In its biennial report for 2007-2008, Ruhama revealed 100 women it helped were victims of trafficking, the majority from Nigeria. Six of those were aged under 18 years when they were brought in to Ireland and forced to have sex with men...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT IrishTimes.com

Middle East: Women as Sex Slaves in United Arab Emirates (Video from Al Jazeera)

2009-09-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

Uzbek Human Trafficking - Women - Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

UN: Economic Crisis May Boost Sex Trafficking

2009-09-18T12:37:00.000-07:00

A U.N. report says human trafficking is thriving because its root causes are not addressed enough.

UNITED NATIONS - Human trafficking is likely to escalate because the global economic crisis has fueled its major causes -- poverty, youth unemployment, gender inequality and the demand for cheap labor, the U.N. investigator on trafficking said Thursday.

In a report to the General Assembly, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo expressed "concern that trafficking continues to thrive'' because these root causes are not being sufficiently addressed and "potential victims become more desperate to escape their unfavorable situations.''

Ezeilo, a human rights lawyer and professor at the University of Nigeria who was appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council job in August 2008, also expressed concern that trafficking victims are sometimes deported "without a sufficient period for recovery and reflection.''

People who are trafficked should not be detained, charged, prosecuted or summarily deported, she stressed...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT MiamiHerald.com

Cambodia: US Charges 3 Sex Tourists With Abusing Children

2009-09-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Two of the accused men, above

They are the first to be charged under an international law-enforcement operation that targets U.S. citizens who travel to Cambodia for illicit sex. They could face 30 years in jail for each victim.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA -- Three American men who are suspected of traveling to Cambodia to molest children have been charged in federal court as part of a new initiative aimed at cracking down on the child sex tourism business there, authorities said Monday.

Ronald Gerard Boyajian, 49, of Menlo Park, Calif.; Erik Leonardus Peeters, 41, of Norwalk; and Jack Louis Sporich, 75, formerly of Santa Monica and currently living in Sedona, Ariz., were arrested by Cambodian police in February, authorities said. They were recently expelled from the country and arrived Monday at LAX in the custody of U.S. immigration officials.

The three men, all previously convicted of sex offenses in the United States, were charged here in absentia earlier this year with traveling overseas for the purpose of engaging in illicit sexual conduct with minors, a charge that could bring up to 30 years per victim, authorities said.

They are the first to be charged under an international law-enforcement operation dubbed "Twisted Traveler," specifically targeting American sex offenders who travel to Cambodia, a country that one U.S. immigration official said was "the world's ground zero for child sex tourists."

"These types of cases are disturbing not only because young, defenseless children were victimized in unspeakable ways," U.S. Atty. Thomas O'Brien said at a news conference Monday. "But also because the defendants went to such lengths to engage in their dark activities overseas."...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LATimes.com

WATCH THE NEWS REPORT AT KTLA.com

Congo: Grim Fate of Street Girls

2009-08-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

LUBUMBASHI, CONGO -- Bijou, 16, speaks in a soft, low voice as she paints a grim picture of what life is like for a young girl living on the streets of Lubumbashi, the second largest city in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC.

On her first day away from home, men older than her but also living on the streets shaved her head and ripped her clothes off. These “big brothers”, as she calls them, also tortured her by putting melted plastic bags on her skin and then raped her.

“This continued until all the men had had me,” she recalled. “This is the baptism ritual. It happens to everyone who is new.”

Bijou was then sent out on to the streets to earn money as a prostitute. When she returned, she says she was beaten up and the money taken from her.

She was only 11 when she began this way of life.

Many hundreds of girls are forced to live this way across the city, where poverty and unemployment are rife. Family life has often broken down and divorce has increased in the wake of two wars in the 1990s, which has led to many children leaving home or being thrown out.

The exact number of street children in the city is not known, but a 2006 study by Lubumbashi University suggested a figure of nearly 17,000. Lubumbashi has an estimated population of around 1.2 million.

Since then, the global financial crisis has exacerbated the widespread poverty and unemployment in the country...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Guatemala: Shocking Femicide Rates

2009-08-25T11:51:00.000-07:00

Gang-related violence has increased in recent years alongside a rise in drug-trafficking activity

GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA -- A white sheet covers another victim of Guatemala City's violence in District 16.

Jocelyn was shot dead while walking home. She was only 17-years-old.

Her family has no idea why she was killed. Her murder, like so many others in this country, will probably remain unpunished.

Situations like this one have become regular in Guatemala as violence against women - termed "femicide" - continues to increase.

The savage methods being used by street gangs in their fight against each other are now being used against women.

Gang-related violence has increased sharply here in recent years, amid an increase in drug-trafficking activity.

But while the murder rate cuts evenly across both sexes, women's groups point out that females are often killed simply because of their gender.

In 2007, more than 700 women and girls were murdered...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT AlJazeera.net

Eaves UK: Male-Ordered Brides & Trafficking

2009-08-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - Eaves is a London-based charity that provides high quality housing and support to vulnerable women. They also carry out research, advocacy and campaigning to prevent all forms of violence against women.

As part of Eaves, the Poppy Project was formed to research, educate, campaign and train to prevent sex trafficking and assist women exiting prostitution. Their latest publication is entitled:

Male-ordered: the mail-order bride industry and trafficking in women for sexual and labour exploitation

Click the above title for a PDF of the full report: An exploration of servile marriage and the ways in which it overlaps with trafficking and violence against women and girls, especially those brought to the UK.

INT'l: The Women's Crusade

2009-08-20T11:42:00.000-07:00

Katy Grannan for The New York Times

Saima Muhammad, shown with her daughter Javaria (seated), lives near Lahore, Pakistan. She was routinely beaten by her husband until she started a successful embroidery business.

WORLDWIDE -- In the 19th century, the paramount moral challenge was slavery. In the 20th century, it was totalitarianism. In this century, it is the brutality inflicted on so many women and girls around the globe: sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape.

Yet if the injustices that women in poor countries suffer are of paramount importance, in an economic and geopolitical sense the opportunity they represent is even greater. “Women hold up half the sky,” in the words of a Chinese saying, yet that’s mostly an aspiration: in a large slice of the world, girls are uneducated and women marginalized, and it’s not an accident that those same countries are disproportionately mired in poverty and riven by fundamentalism and chaos. There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.

One place to observe this alchemy of gender is in the muddy back alleys of Pakistan. In a slum outside the grand old city of Lahore, a woman named Saima Muhammad used to dissolve into tears every evening. A round-faced woman with thick black hair tucked into a head scarf, Saima had barely a rupee, and her deadbeat husband was unemployed and not particularly employable. He was frustrated and angry, and he coped by beating Saima each afternoon. Their house was falling apart, and Saima had to send her young daughter to live with an aunt, because there wasn’t enough food to go around...

WATCH AN AUDIO SLIDE SHOW AT NYTimes.com

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

ORGANIZATIONS HELPING WOMEN IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AT NYTimes.com

UK: Many Unaware of Child Trafficking

2009-08-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

Many Britons do not realise the scale of child trafficking in the UK and may be making it worse, campaigners say.

A poll of 1,255 people for campaign group Ecpat UK and the Body Shop found one in 10 did not know that children are trafficked into the UK.

The survey also found that 22% admitted buying fake DVDs or visiting brothels, which can perpetuate child trafficking.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre identified some 325 potential victims in 2007 to 2008.

The Home Office said the hidden nature of the trade in children made it extremely difficult to estimate the scale of the problem.

'Hard to spot'

The study showed 34% of people believe trafficked children end up in foreign countries, not in Britain.

However, a government Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) report in April found that victims had come to the UK from 52 different countries...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT BBC.co.uk

US: Fantastic Resource - Trafficking Laws by State

2009-08-10T17:29:00.000-07:00

Screenshot of CWPS' State trafficking laws interactive feature

The CENTER FOR WOMEN POLICY STUDIES (CWPS), as part of their US PACT (US Policy Advocacy to Combat Trafficking) program feature an interactive US map with state trafficking laws, task forces and more on their website.

CHECK OUT THE MAP HERE

Peter Buffet + Akon Anti-trafficking Music Video: Blood Into Gold

2009-08-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

Blood Into Gold is the compelling new song from Peter Buffett featuring Akon, pinpointing the issue of human trafficking and slavery. The poignant video, produced by UNICEF, is a powerful visual representation of the songs message, utilizing moving images and video from around the world that depict the severity of this issue. As a complementary advocacy tool to the song, the hope of the video is to call attention to the issue and inspire others to help bring an end to the atrocities associated with human trafficking.

VISIT IsThereSomethingICando.com

Mexico: Girls Missing in Ciudad Juarez

2009-08-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

Posters seeking information on missing persons hang on a pedestrian bridge in Juarez. The disappearances, which include two promising university students and girls as young as 13, have stirred dark memories of the killings of hundreds of women that made Ciudad Juarez infamous a decade ago.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO - The streets of Juarez are swallowing the young and pretty.

Monica Alanis, an 18-year-old college freshman, never came home from her exams. That was more than four months ago.

Across town, 17-year-old Brenda Ponce didn't return from a job-hunting trip downtown. That was a year ago.

Hilda Rivas, 16, was also last spotted downtown. That was 17 months ago.

Two dozen teenage girls and young women have gone missing in this violent border city in the last year and half, stirring dark memories of the killings of hundreds of women that made Ciudad Juarez infamous a decade ago.

The disappearances, which include two university students and girls as young as 13, have some crime-novel touches: mysterious dropped calls, messages left by third parties and unsubstantiated reports of the women being kept at a house.

There is no clear evidence of wrongdoing or links among the cases, which have been overshadowed by a vicious drug war that has killed more than 2,500 people in Juarez since the beginning of 2008. But relatives of the young women say it is highly unlikely that they would have left on their own.

Monica Alanis' parents say she was seldom late returning from the campus. That day in March, Olga Esparza says she called her daughter to find out why she was three hours late. Monica reassured her: "I'll be home later."

Desperate family members have hung missing-person banners and taped fliers to telephone poles all over the city in hope of getting leads on the whereabouts of loved ones. They've checked hospitals and combed dusty canyons in the impoverished fringes of the city. They've badgered state investigators, but complain that authorities have no solid leads to explain why so many young women would drop from view at once.

"There is no theory. There is no hypothesis," said Ricardo Alanis, Monica's father, his voice thin with pain. "They don't have anything concrete after four months."

The vacuum has prompted parents to envision their own disturbing story lines. Several say they believe their daughters have been seized and forced into prostitution, perhaps in the United States, by the same criminal bands that have turned this border city into the bloodiest front in the drug war...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LATimes.com

Cambodia: Precious Girl Magazine

2009-08-10T16:41:00.000-07:00

CAMBODIA - Roathanak is an 18 year-old girl working in a garment factory in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. She grew up in the countryside but left school early and came to the big city. She hoped that the money she made would support her parents and her younger brothers and sisters back home.

Away from the security of ther family, Roathanak misses home, even though she shares her small bedroom with five other girls. On a good month, she can earn $68 with maximum overtime and bonuses, and sends $30 of this back to her family. With basic living expenses costing over $30, there is barely enough money for her to eat well, let alone buy books.

Roathanak is just one of about 300,000 young women working in garment factories in and around Phnom Penh. Clothing manufacture is an important industry in Cambodia, generating income for this developing country and providing employment for the daughters of poorer families.

Precious Girl is an affordable quarterly magazine which aims to be a blessing to these vulnerable young women. It is designed to encourage and inspire its readers and impress on them a sense of their immense value. Most Khmer magazines for young women are expensive, celebrity-laden and morally questionable, but Precious Girl is invariably wholesome and uplifting.

The glossy, full-colour pages are packed with health and beauty tips, creative ideas, inspirational stories and practical help for girls facing real-life dilemmas. The factory worker's photos, comments and letters are also printed - the only stars in this magazine are the readers themselves!

Precious Girl is run by a young vibrant team of local Christian girls. In producing this magazine, they want to celebrate the richness of the factory worker's lives and encourage thousands of girls like Roathanak to find meaning and happiness within.

CHECK OUT PreciousGirl.co.uk

Eastern Europe: PriceOfSex.org, Women Speak Out in Multimedia Projects

2009-08-07T18:51:00.000-07:00

Photographer Mimi Chakarova spent seven years delving into the world of sex trafficking in Eastern Europe, even going undercover to document the situation. The result is an intimate multimedia portrait of these women's lives.

EASTERN EUROPE - Jenea saw 50 customers a day the year she worked in Turkey.

She wasn't a bank teller or a hairdresser.

Jenea was one of the estimated 1.39 million people trafficked each year into the sex trade industry, according to the Geneva-based International Labor Organization.

She is also one of the subjects of an intimate multimedia portrait series by photojournalist Mimi Chakarova called "The Price of Sex: Women Speak."

For the seven-year-long investigative series, Chakarova delved deep into the murky world of sex trafficking, interviewing dozens of women--and even posing as a trafficked woman herself. The result is a handful of profiles, narrated through photography, video and audio, which paint a picture of what these women must endure.

Chakarova, in conjunction with the Center for Investigative Reporting, based in Berkeley, Calif., brought these stories to the public in May of this year. They launched www.priceofsex.org, a Web site that unites these women's stories with resources on the issue, allowing people to take action, donate or learn more.

Over the course of the project, Chakarova estimates that she spoke with up to 50 women from Eastern Europe who had been trafficked. At times, her subjects were so traumatized that she could not bring herself to continue interviewing...

WATCH JENEA'S STORY ON PriceOfSex.org

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT WomensENews.org

USA: National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking: America's Prostituted Children

2009-07-31T15:37:00.000-07:00

USA - Shared Hope International, an organization aimed at eradicating sex slavery in the United States, has released a landmark report detailing child prostitution.

In 2006 Shared Hope International received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to perform field research on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST)—the sex trafficking of American children. The National Report is the culmination of ten field assessments conducted in targeted locations in the United States, providing a comprehensive understanding of child sex trafficking across America. This unprecedented report reveals the starling reality that American children are being recruited from our neighborhoods and sold on our streets!

The National Report found misidentification of victims to be the primary barrier to properly addressing America’s trafficked children. Consequently, this misidentification often leads to the criminalization of victims, barring them from receiving proper treatment and care. In fact, in nearly every location American child victims of sex trafficking are being arrested for the crime committed against them while their abusers walk free. In addition, the study found a severe lack of appropriate protective and therapeutic shelters. Finally, the National Report emphasizes that although buyers are a critical in addressing the issue of child sex trafficking, buyers most often escape criminalization.

Click the link below to download more information:

The National Report [PDF 1.58mb]
Printer friendly version [PDF 1.25mb]