A girl looks for toys among the gifts left for refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine. With women and children forming the overwhelming majority of people fleeing the country, rights groups are concerned about trafficking and sexual violence. Credit: Ed Holt/IPS

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Mar 30 2022 (IPS)

States must do more to protect women and children fleeing war in Ukraine, rights groups have urged, amid growing concerns they are falling prey to trafficking and sexual violence.

Since the Russian invasion on February 24, an estimated 3.5 million people have fled the country, while another 6.5 million have been internally displaced.

Local and international humanitarian organisations have warned these people – overwhelmingly women and children –  are vulnerable to trafficking and gender-based violence within and outside the country as they make often long, dangerous journeys in a desperate bid to reach safety.

“Wherever people have to flee their homes, there will be vulnerabilities [for those fleeing]. The risks are rampant in any situation like that. We are deeply concerned about reports of trafficking and sexual violence,” Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson at UNHCR, told IPS.

Ukraine’s refugee crisis –  described by the UN as the world’s fastest-growing since WWII – has seen millions of people flee to neighbouring states Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Moldova.

While there has been a massive humanitarian response in those countries and across Europe and in other states, much of the help refugees have been given has been organised ad-hoc by aid groups and individual volunteers.

Organisations and volunteers working with refugees at border crossings and transit points have warned a lack of official organisation has left those arriving at serious risk of exploitation.

Nico Delvino, a researcher at Amnesty International who has been monitoring the situation at Polish border crossings with Ukraine, told IPS: “The system [for receiving refugees] exposes them to risks, not just trafficking and sexual violence, but other predatory behaviour.

“The outpouring of solidarity from volunteers has been heart-warming, but it has not been matched by the state’s organisation. There is little or no coordination, there is a lack of management at the borders. Anyone can show up and put a vest on and say they are a volunteer. There are no checks on volunteers. It is a chaotic and dangerous situation.”

There have already been anecdotal reports of trafficking and sexual violence against refugees.

Volunteers and aid groups who spoke to IPS said they had heard of women who had been raped, attacked, solicited by men, or approached in what appeared to be attempts by criminals to traffic them.

Interpol has now deployed officers to help investigate alleged trafficking in Moldova, where 376,000 refugees have fled since the start of the war, while local police forces are reportedly investigating alleged incidents in other countries.

Meanwhile, the specific profile of the refugee crisis may have exacerbated the vulnerability of those fleeing, say aid organisations.

The overwhelming majority of those trying to leave Ukraine are women and children – the UNHCR told IPS they make up as many as 90% of those fleeing the war – as a Ukrainian government order has banned men aged between 18 and 60 from leaving the country.

“What is different about this crisis of displaced people is that when you have women with children and old people, they have multiple responsibilities, and responsibilities have always been used by traffickers as a means of control – threats to family are made. But now, these can be made directly. That these women have multiple responsibilities makes them more vulnerable,” Eliza Galos, Migrant Protection and Assistance Programme Co-ordinator at International Organisation for Migration in Ukraine, told IPS.

Children are at particular risk, with a number of the latter often making journeys unaccompanied.

UNICEF has said in a statement  that the war in Ukraine has displaced More than half of Ukraine’s children displaced after one month of war (unicef.org) 4.3 million children, with 1.8 million of those having crossed into neighbouring countries as refugees.

Missing Children Europe, an umbrella group for 24 child-protection organisations across Europe, has warned that many unaccompanied minors are disappearing at the borders.

“There are so many children […] that we lost track of,” Aagje Ieven, secretary-general of Missing Children Europe, told international media: “This is a huge problem, not just because it means they easily go missing, and are difficult to find, but also because it makes trafficking so easy.”

However, it is not just the people leaving Ukraine who are in danger of being exploited.

There are an estimated 6.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs) within Ukraine, and humanitarian groups say many among them are also at risk of falling into the hands of trafficking gangs or being subjected to sexual violence.

“Like refugees, IDPs are also facing threats. The threats to women are sexual violence and exploitation. For IDP children, for various reasons – for example, men having to stay in Ukraine and mothers being abroad working – we see many of them ending up travelling alone. We are worried about the risk of trafficking of these unaccompanied children,” Galos said.

Past experience suggests trafficking gangs are taking advantage of the dire situation in Ukraine, with many women and children forced to suddenly leave their homes with their family networks broken and their financial security often under threat.

A 2018 report by the Council of Europe highlighted the increased vulnerability to human trafficking of millions of IDPs who were forced to flee their homes following the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the armed conflict in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Meanwhile, IOM estimates  that 46,000 Ukrainians suffered from human trafficking during 2019-2021 alone.

“Human trafficking cases [in Ukraine] are difficult to identify, not least because there is a state of war at the moment, but it is reasonable to assume that it is going on – it happened before after the Crimea annexation and conflict in Luhansk and Donetsk – and it can eventually be detected,” said Galos.

Aid groups say authorities in countries receiving Ukrainian refugees must put in place proper systems to register and follow up on those arriving and ensure they do not become victims of criminal gangs or others looking to exploit their vulnerable situation.

International humanitarian groups, such as UNHCR, UNICEF, and others, are working with local authorities in countries receiving refugees to set up systems to, among others, vet volunteers at border crossings and transit centres.

Meanwhile, in some places, NGOs are handing out information leaflets to refugees, warning them to be careful of accepting offers of accommodation or transport from strangers, while hotlines have been set up for people to report any suspicions they have of potential criminal activity or danger.

Romy Hawatt, founding member of the Global Sustainability Network (GSN) noted in a recent interview with IPS that “traffickers target the most vulnerable and it is the women and children that fit this category, and especially those that are from poorer communities, perhaps are refugees and those who lack education fall into the highest risk category of those who are trafficked.”

In a statement, Helga Gayer, President of GRETA, the Council of Europe’s expert group on trafficking, said: “People fleeing war are physically and psychologically weakened, unfamiliar with their new surroundings and highly vulnerable to falling prey to criminals. Structures receiving refugees must ensure that they are informed of their rights, in a language they can understand, and provided with psychological and material support. The authorities must take steps to prevent fraudulent offers of transportation, accommodation, and work, and strengthen safety protocols for unaccompanied children, linking them to national child protection systems.”

However, at some border crossings and transit centres, there seems to still be no way for refugees to check on the veracity of any offers they may receive.

“One refugee we spoke to told us she was looking for transport and was aware that she needed to be careful and check that anyone she took a ride from was trustworthy, but she didn’t know how she could check that. We don’t know what she did in the end because there is no way of following up on people. There is no registration of who is coming or leaving the centres, nor who they are leaving with,” said Delvino.

Notwithstanding any efforts by authorities to strengthen protection against exploitation, the situation for the women and children involved in the crisis, and the risks they face, is not expected to improve anytime soon.

“Women and girls face greater risk in conflict displacement situations. Refugee numbers are going up, and until there is an end to what is going on in Ukraine, we will continue to see people on the move, and we can expect to see displacement continue,” said Mantoo.

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Trafficking survivor turned activist, and consultant Shamere McKenzie trains authorities and mentors survivors. The use of technology and awareness of how to spot and avoid traps used by human traffickers. Credit: Zadie Neufville/IPS

By Zadie Neufville
Kingston, Jan 31 2022 (IPS)

A single line at the end of the United States State Department 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report made headlines in Jamaica and had many perturbed. “Some police allegedly facilitated or participated in sex trafficking,” it read.

While the report cited no incidents, investigations, or police officers’ convictions for sex trafficking, Jamaicans on social media called for investigations. People cited the increasing levels of sexual abuse reported during the COVID-19 pandemic as justification.

US authorities have categorised Jamaica as “a source, transit, and destination country for adults and children trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labour”.

Manager of the Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Secretariat Chenee Russell Robinson told journalists recently that more than 110 victims of sex trafficking were rescued in the last ten years. At an average of ten per year, she believes the number is far too high “because this number represents only the tip of the iceberg”.

Some matters are before the court, and investigations into other activities were ongoing, noting that while girls make up the majority of sex trafficking victims, there are a growing number of boys, too, she said.

Between 2015 and 2019, the number of teens reported missing on the island averaged approximately 1,400 a year, data from the Child Protection and Family Services Agency shows. With numbers increasing annually and the figures for those returning home or recovered declining, the spectre of a rising sex trafficking trade is becoming one of the biggest worries for local authorities.

Child protection activists believe that most missing children who do not return home are victims of sex trafficking. Here, it is not uncommon for families, including mothers, to traffic their girl children in exchange for monetary or material payment, police say. This form of child sex trafficking may be more widespread in some communities.

Experts say that children who are sent by their parents to live with their more affluent relatives in urban areas regularly become victims. And according to the State Department report: “Sex trafficking of Jamaican women and children, including boys, occurs on streets and in nightclubs, bars, massage parlours, hotels and private homes, and resort towns”.

So, while the report commends Jamaica for its strides and multi-agency approach to combatting human trafficking, it scolds the government for reduced spending, a fall-off in apprehension and training. It also criticised the absence of “long-term services to support victims’ reintegration, prevent re-exploitation, or sustain protection throughout lengthy court cases”.

The report noted that Jamaica “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.” These efforts included a trafficking conviction with significant prison terms and restitution paid to the victim, a national referral mechanism that aims to standardise procedures for victim identification, referral to cross-government entities services and an annual report.

Significantly, authorities hold up several improvements The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Suppression and Punishment) Act, first enacted in 2007. Amendments speed up the prosecution of cases by introducing bench trials and increasing the penalties.

On July 9, 2013, the government amended the Act to increase incarceration periods to 20 years. The 2021 amendments removed the alternate and often controversial fine in place of imprisonment.

“Now a person convicted of trafficking can only be imprisoned or imprisoned and fined, so you cannot be fined only,” Russell explained.

Trafficking survivor turned activist, and consultant Shamere McKenzie told IPS in an interview that community awareness, involvement, and the use of technology to enhance the safety of possible victims could be the tools that tip Jamaica into Tier 1.

“There’s a lot we can do as a community to help our young people shape their morals and values and build their sense of awareness,” she said, noting that traffickers can recognise people with low self-esteem.

Since 2016 authorities have funded the development of two apps – Stay Alert and Travel Plan – to make it safer for especially young girls and women who use public transport. McKenzie believes communities and parents must learn to use technologies to keep their children safe.

“We should be teaching people how to protect themselves, how to memorise numbers, develop code words, develop safety methods and use text messages to protect themselves,” said McKenzie, who mentors survivors and educates others on how to spot and avoid the traps.

A former student-athlete, she was lured by someone she thought was a caring friend into 18-months of living hell. Sidelined by a serious hamstring injury, the young Jamaican’s athletics scholarship to a top United States university was suspended. She was forced to work for the extra money she needed for school fees and rent when she accepted a friend’s help.

The short-term offer of a rent-free basement apartment and ‘extra work’ at the trafficker’s nightclub turned into forced sex work after being beaten into submission by a man she believed to be her friend.

While this episode took place in the US, it is not uncommon for Jamaicans and foreigners to be lured young women into prostitution by offering them jobs or simply ’a better life’.

In 2016, a court sentenced Rohan Ebanks to 40 years and imprisoned and fined his common-law wife Voneisha Reeves after trafficking a 14-year-old Haitian girl. The judge convicted Ebanks for rape, trafficking, and facilitating trafficking in person while his co-accused had pleaded guilty to facilitating trafficking.

The fisherman had met the girl’s father on one of his many trips to Haiti and had convinced him to send her to Jamaica for a better life. Three years after the ordeal began, police rescued the teen from Ebanks and Reeve’s home, where she had been looking after the couple’s children.

As the pandemic progresses, Robinson and other members of the Traffic in Persons (TiP) task force warn parents that traffickers have gone online, making it more difficult to track them. They’ve also warned teens and their parents that families are also trafficking their relatives.

The 110 rescued by the TiP task force are among the .04 per cent of the estimated human trafficking survivors worldwide identified. The number is an indicator that most go undetected.

Experts conclude that assessing the scope of human trafficking is difficult because many cases go undetected. However, estimates are between 20 million and 40 million people n modern slavery today earn the perpetrators roughly 150 billion US dollars annually. Some 99 billion US dollars comes from commercial sexual exploitation.

“We must begin to teach our youth to use the technology we have to protect themselves,” McKenzie said.

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN )  is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Friends Ajay and Durgesh are returned to their families with the help of ActionAid India and the All India Bonded Labour Liberation Front. The boys were tricked into bonded labour by a trusted fellow villager. Credit: ActionAid

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, India, Jan 28 2022 (IPS)

Friends Ajay and Durgesh were lured from the same village in the remote and poverty-stricken countryside of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) in January 2021.

Friends Ajay and Durgesh were lured from the same village in the remote and poverty-stricken countryside of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) in January 2021.

The boys, aged 16, were whisked away from their homes, transported, and sold as bonded labour to a garment factory in Rajkot in the western state of Gujarat. Rajkot is some 2000 km from Ajay and Durgesh’s village in UP.

Along with two other boys from the same village, Sanjay (15) and Pavan (14), Ajay and Durgesh were befriended by a man, only identified as Gulab, and promised an eight-hour a day job, with a salary of Rs 7500 (about US 100 dollars) per month at a garment factory. The boys accepted the offer immediately because Gulab was from the same village and had known them since childhood.

“At the factory, the boys were thrown in with dozens of other children who were never paid. They were woken at 7 am and forced to work till 11 pm. The factory owner threatened to kill them if they stepped out of the factory,” Dalsinghar told IPS speaking from Lucknow. “The children were abused and kicked when the supervisor felt that they were not working fast enough. None of the children was given enough to eat.”

Dalsinghar, who goes by his surname, is a trade union leader and head of the UP office of the All India Bonded Labour Liberation Front. With ActionAid India, Dalsinghar helped to rescue the four boys in August 2021. The boys are now finishing their studies in their village.

These boys are lucky to have escaped the clutches of traffickers. Ajay found a mobile phone one day and quickly called his family. He told them the exact location of the factory in faraway Gujarat.

The family got in touch with Raju, a volunteer with ActionAid India, who lived near their village. With the help of Dalsinghar, Raju and the district administrations of Kushinagar in UP and Rajkot in Gujarat, the boys were rescued, and their eight-month ordeal at the hands of the garment factory owner ended.

There are numerous incidents of victims being deceived by people they know.

Families celebrate the return of four boys trafficked into bonded labour in a factory far from home. Credit: ActionAid, India

Take Gulab as an example. Gulab came from the same village as the four teenagers he trapped and sold to a garment factory owner.

In the hope of avoiding deprivation and starvation in difficult economic times, the teenagers took up Gulab’s offer. They trusted him and fell for his lies because it did not occur to them that he would betray them.

ActionAid quotes other instances when a loved one has tricked victims. When that happens, the victim often does not fight back.

Sita was sold to traffickers by her alcoholic father in a West Bengal village as a bride. She was taken from place to place until she found shelter in an ashram in a city in UP. The police were informed, and she returned to her village in West Bengal.

Frequently missing children and adults cases include abduction and trafficking. Most of the time, missing people are not reported to the police, and if reported, the reports are not registered.

Children from the poorest of low-income families are most vulnerable. They are the main target of traffickers as poor and illiterate families are most likely not to approach authorities for help. There are instances of children and adults leaving home searching for glamour and fortune in big cities like Mumbai. Once there, touts find them and force them to beg or work as sex slaves without remuneration or concern for their health.

ActionAid India continues to work in villages providing support to survivors of trafficking and violence with medical, psycho-social and legal support.

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that times are extremely challenging for communities. Schools closures and work opportunities in most villages have shrunk, which means that social activists like Dalsinghar need to be more vigilant today than ever before.

Nobel Peace Prize winners Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai have rescued thousands of children from the worst form of child labour and trafficking.

Satyarthi has led a Bharat Yatra, a nationwide march in India to demand legislation against child rape, child sexual abuse and trafficking.

The Kailash Satyarthi Children Foundation conducted a study in 2020 that concluded there was a high likelihood of an increase in human trafficking in the post-lockdown period for labour.

About 89 per cent of NGOs surveyed said that trafficking of both adults and children for labour would be one of the biggest threats in the post-lockdown period as household incomes of the most vulnerable deplete.

There is concern that the desperate and vulnerable populations of unorganised workers, who are in no position to negotiate wages or their rights, will be a massive pool for cheap labour. Many of these labourers could be children, forced out of school and forced to earn a living.

The fear is that thousands of children will likely be trafficked across the country to work in manufacturing units where they will be paid meagre to no wages and will most likely face extreme physical, mental and sexual violence.

Thousands of children like Ajay, Durgesh, Sanjay and Pavan are easy targets for an organised crime network of human trafficking. It is feared that many more children will be enslaved during the pandemic by those looking for cheap labour when many economic activities have come to a standstill.

“It is tragic when people betray the trust of children,” concludes Dalsinghar.

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

A woman hides her face with the poster protesting forced conversions during the Aurat March (Women's March) in 2021. Experts say ‘forced conversions’, usually of underage girls, involve abduction, rape, human trafficking and other serious offences. Activists and experts have called improved legislation. Credit: Aurat March Karachi

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Jan 19 2022 (IPS)

Two years after Michelle, 15, was kidnapped, sold, forced to convert to Islam and married to a stranger, relatives still ostracise her.

“My aunts and uncles have left us, and my two older brothers, till a few months ago, were not even talking to me,” said Michelle, talking to IPS over the phone from Faisalabad, in the Punjab province of Pakistan. They believe she has brought dishonour to them.

Her captors and even the cleric who officiated the marriage are free despite committing multiple offences, including abduction, trafficking and rape.

“There are several laws that can be invoked for tackling offences, such as kidnapping and abductions,” lamented Peter Jacob, executive director of the Center for Social Justice (CSJ), a research and advocacy organisation. “But the prosecution has failed to do so.”

Most of the young, female victims belong to the Christian (in Punjab) and Hindu (in Sindh) minorities and followed the same pattern.

Experts and activists demand legislation to prevent ‘forced conversions’ that are often associated with human trafficking, abduction and rape. The white poster on the left says: ‘Forced conversion unacceptable’. The blue poster says: ‘Underage marriage is a crime’. Credit: NCJP.

“This year, at least 62 such cases have been reported,” he told IPS over the phone from the eastern city of Lahore, in the Punjab province.

In the predominantly Muslim nation of 220 million people, the Christians and Hindus in Pakistan are estimated to be 1.27% and 2.14%, respectively, according to the 2017 census.

Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a member of the national assembly from the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, also the patron-in-chief of the Pakistan Hindu Council, told IPS “hundreds of cases” remain unreported.

Rukhsana Khokhar, senior project manager at the Karachi-based non-profit, Legal Aid Society, agreed with Vankwani.

“The victim’s family is hesitant to approach the police because of their harsh attitude,” she said.

“The affected family is diffident to report the crime because of the repercussions from the powerful and influential another side.”

Moreover, Khokhar said, the road to justice was tedious and complicated, but it was also expensive and often beyond their means.

In a majority of the cases, the adolescent girls from Hindu communities are uneducated, belong to poor families and are “surrounded by misogyny and patriarchy,” she said.

However, the reason for the conversion of educated Hindu girls belonging to well-off families was different. They want to seek escape from being forced into marrying uneducated Hindu men from their community. The only way out is for them is to convert to Islam.

Khokhar, who has been studying this issue for over a decade, believed that sensitisation was one way of overcoming the issue since societal prejudices remained the most significant barrier. This should include the clerics who officiate the nikah (the ceremony where the couple is legally wed under Islamic law), the investigating officers working on such cases and the district administration.

According to Vankwani, many parliamentarians concede the issue persists, but it is not as rampant as to be of concern.

“I say, even if it’s just one person who is forcibly converted, it becomes our responsibility to stop this practise through legislation,” he says.

Over the years, there have been several attempts to regulate conversions through legislative means without success.

In 2019, the Sindh assembly, for the second time, rejected a bill criminalising forced religious conversions. The first attempt was in 2016.

Safina Javed, Vice President Pakistan Minority Rights Commission, Sindh chapter, holding a poster. Credit: Safina Javed

In 2020, the Standing Committee on Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony had rejected the Protection of Rights of Minorities Bill, 2020, which recommended an age limit of 18 years for conversion.

The parliamentary committee shot down a draft of yet another anti-forced conversion bill opposed earlier in the year by the ministry of religious affairs even before it could be tabled in the national assembly.

The excuse made by the minister for religious affairs, Noorul Haq Qadri, was the “unfavourable” environment.

According to political and integrity risk analyst Huma Yusuf, the current “social, religious and political environment” was too oppressive in a Talibanized Pakistan for the law to find favour from any quarter.

“A key problem is that the term ‘forced conversion’ glosses over what’s really at stake. Reportedly, some 1,000 girls from religious minorities, primarily Hindus, are forced to convert each year,” Yusuf says.

“These conversions can involve abduction, rape, violence, human trafficking and extortion. They also enrich clerics who receive payments for solemnising such marriages, corrupt police officials who take bribes instead of investigating, and magistrates who look the other way. By rejecting the bill, our lawmakers are condoning these other activities. How does this serve Islam?”

The reasons for rejecting the most recent bill by the ministry and the parliamentary committee were the minimum age (set to be 18 years) kept for converting to another religion, a 90-day contemplation period before conversion and testifying before a judge.

The bill stated that the “age will be ascertained based on the child’s birth certificate, school enrolment certificate, or the official database. In the absence of all, the person’s age may be determined through a medical examination”.

“There are about 20 laws that place some or the other restrictions on a person below 18 years of age,” pointed out Jacob, including getting a driver’s license, voting or seeking employment.

“These are reasonable restrictions and enhance the scope of freedoms and protect the rights in those specific areas.”

He also found the 90-day contemplation period logical for a “matter that is individually and socially important and should not be dealt with casually or hastily”.

Further, says Jacob, testifying before a judge eliminates the possibility of covering the crime of kidnapping by marriage and will ensure that conversion is not under any duress, deceit, threat or fraudulent misrepresentation.

Terming the bill a “dam” that was drafted to “restrain the spread of Islam,” Pir Abdul Khaliq, 66, who heads the century-old madressa Ahya Darul Uloom, in Dharki, in Sindh province’s Ghotki district, was happy it was “rejected”.

This madressa (a “hotbed” for alleged conversions), next to the shrine of Khanqah-i-Aalia Qadria Bharchundi Sharif, has a chain of nearly 200 seminaries spread across Sindh (140), Punjab (30) and almost two dozen in Balochistan.

Since he took over the reins of the seminary from his father 50 years ago, he says, he has converted scores of men and women of their “free will”. Talking to IPS over the phone from Dharki, he conceded he was among those who had threatened the ministry that his followers would “come on the streets and hold protests” if the bill was passed.

Having converted entire families, “from 80-year-olds to some as young as eight”, he says no one ever objected to that, so why the need for a law.

“If an underage child converts alongside the parents or guardians, there is no objection,” responded Khokhar. The objection raised was of the conversion of single adolescents like Michelle.

“Why are they never elderly women, why do they have to flee to another city to convert and why are the parents not allowed to meet them?” she asked.

“There is no age to conversion,” responded Khaliq, but insisted he “respected the age of marriage”, which is 18 in Sindh.

However, many underage Hindu girls from Sindh are taken to Punjab, where the legal age of marriage is 16, says Khokhar. She believes it would help halt forced conversion if the age restriction of 18 years for conversion and marriage was “enforced uniformly” throughout the country.

In 2019, two Hindu sisters, Raveena and Reena, made headlines by going to the court seeking protection from their family, saying they had wilfully accepted Islam. The family insisted they were abducted.

The sisters were converted before their marriage in Sindh (where the age for marriage is 18) but married in Punjab (where the age for marriage is 16).

However, the court allowed the sisters to go to their husbands but sent a five-member fact-finding team to ascertain this was not a forced conversion.

The report recommended religious conversion be carried out through a “proper process and be formalised or registered in a court of law”.

At times, says Khaliq, girls eloped and converted to Islam because they had fallen in love with Muslim men and “not for the love of religion”.

In that case, says the cleric, the woman is given “a day or two to think over her decision”. But if she still insists on conversion, he performs the ceremony. “Marriage between a Muslim and Hindu is not permissible in Islam,” he says, and so she converts.

He also pointed out that there are times the woman realises she has made a wrong judgement, but after having fled her parent’s home, the chances of her being accepted by her family are very slim on her return.

“She has little recourse but to follow the original plan of converting to Islam”.

However, he reiterated, his seminary would not perform the nikah if the girl was underage.

“We will convert her only, and then she can go back to her parents till she attains the age of marriage. If her family won’t accept her new religion, and which happens in most cases, we provide her shelter, till she attains the legal age of marriage,” says Khaliq.

Responding to Khokhar’s query of moving to another city to convert, Khaliq explains: “Once the girl elopes with the man and the parents go to the police, many forces come into play, including the feudal lord of the area and the police. Fearful of their life, their first thought is to find a safe place.”

If it were passed, the bill would have effectively addressed this issue by restricting the person applying for a conversion certificate to get it issued from the judge of the area where the non-Muslim resided, says Jacob.

He, however, refuses to let the rejection dampen his spirit. “We have no other option but to fight taking the legal route to ensure a fixed process for conversion is followed,” says Jacob.

Along with Dr Vankwani, he is working with the Council of Islamic Ideology (tasked with giving legal advice on Islamic issues to the government and the parliament) to develop a draft bill that would be acceptable to all faiths.

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau
  

Trafficked, kept prisoner in Saudi Arabia Wanjiku Njoki was lucky to escape unharmed. She has since found work serving tea for a government parastatal. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

By Joyce Chimbi
Nairobi, Kenya, Jan 14 2022 (IPS)

Distress calls from vulnerable Kenyan women in Saudi Arabia experiencing mistreatment and torture at the hands of their employers went from 88 in 2019/2020 to 1,025 just one year later.

And this fear is all too familiar for 28-year-old Wanjiku Njoki. The young woman’s whose search for greener pastures in the Gulf landed her in the hands of a physically, mentally, and verbally abusive employer.

In 2018, she travelled to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

That year, Wanjiku was one of an estimated 57,000 to 100,000 Kenyans who travel to Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Bahrain annually, for unskilled and semi-skilled work, according to the Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Services.

“I heard stories of suffering and death, especially from Saudi Arabia, but the recruiting agent told us they only work with employers who have no history of abuse,” she tells IPS.

“They also lied about the salary. I received $180 per month and not the $700 promised. My employer would pay me, make me sign a document confirming the payment and then steal the money back. When I told them about the missing money, the man and his wife would slap me and refuse to feed me.”

Her life as a shagala, which she says is Arabic for house helper or servant, became a year-long nightmare. With her passport and mobile phone confiscated by her employer, cutting her off from the rest of the world, she saw no way out.

“I worked from 5 am to midnight every day. I spoke only when spoken to and was very depressed. With time, I befriended the gardener who allowed me to secretly use his mobile phone,” she says.

Eventually, she connected with Kenyans in Saudi Arabia through social media, who told her how to escape, get arrested and deported. In 2020, Wanjiku returned to her village in Kagongo, Kiambu County, empty-handed but alive.

Saudi Arabia has a modern slavery prevalence rank index of 138 out of 167 countries as per the Global Slavery Index. The index also estimates that 61,000 people live in modern slavery and that 46 out of every 100 people are vulnerable to modern slavery.

Confronted by unemployment rates that are among the highest in the world as per the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO), hundreds of vulnerable women like Wanjiku continue to take, more often than not, a doomed voyage to the Gulf.

The parliamentary committee on labour and social welfare indicate the number of Kenyans working in Saudi Arabia has risen from 55,000 in 2019 to 97,000. The number of deaths and distress incidences has also increased.

In 2019, three deaths were reported to the Kenya embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, rising to 48 deaths in 2020 and, as of September 2021, 41 deaths.

Thus far in 2021, three deaths have been reported in Qatar, one in the United Arab Emirates, two in Kuwait, nine in Oman and two in Bahrain.

“There are at least a hundred backstreet agencies linking workers to the Middle East. Only 29 agencies are government approved and licensed. Many agencies are very greedy and are least concerned with the safety and security of their recruits,” says Suzanne Karanja, a Nairobi-based recruitment agent.

“There is money to be made because a prospective employer will pay me $1,800 to $2,000 per head to facilitate travel to their country. Most agents do not intervene when trouble comes. Their work is done once they receive the commission.”

Karanja says the slave and master scenario presents itself among female domestic workers and employers in the Middle East mainly because employers incur the entire cost of processing travel documents, training, and travel.

She tells IPS that a potential employer pays at least $2500, split between a recruitment agent in the country of origin and the destination country.

If the recruited domestic worker leaves before the contract is completed, employers insist on a refund.

She says the government must step up and crack down on backstreet agents for violating terms of operation, not registering their businesses at a cost of $5000 or paying the $5000 to $10 000 once-off bond.

The $5,000, she says, is supposed to be used to rescue distressed women who, so far, are rescued by Kenyans of goodwill when their distress stories circulate on social media.

Additionally, Karanja speaks of Kenyans illegally detained in the Middle East for challenging poor working conditions and others stranded and living on the streets hoping to be arrested and deported.

“All the deaths are among young women, and their employers say they died of cardiac arrest. How is this possible? Young, energetic women who went through and passed mandatory medical tests dying within one to four years of being in the Middle East?” Karanja questions.

Wanjiku says that the Kenya Embassy in Saudi Arabia should be scrapped because it is notorious for turning a blind eye.

“Families of women who died in the Middle East have video and text message evidence of their loved ones crying for help, but the embassy and agents did nothing to rescue them. The women record themselves on mobile phones and send these videos to their families and social media but help only comes through ordinary Kenyans.”

Parliament’s Standing Committee on Labour and Social Welfare travelled to the Gulf region in April 2021 to find solutions to the crisis.

Karanja stresses that the situation is dire, prompting the Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Macharia Kamau to write to the Ministry of Labour in July 2021, strongly recommending a temporary ban on recruitment and export of domestic workers to Saudi Arabia until protection measures are in place.

Thus far, no concrete actions have come from the recommendation or others made by politicians after the Gulf visit. Meanwhile, blinded by poverty and desperation, vulnerable women continue to make their way to the Gulf.

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Desperate for work Kamikazi put her faith in ‘agents’ to find her a job. Instead, she found herself working without pay as a domestic worker in Kuwait. Photo: Aimable Twahirwa/IPS

By Aimable Twahirwa
KIGALI, Rwanda, Jan 5 2022 (IPS)

When Kamikazi * from Gisagara, a district in Southern Rwanda, was forced to quit her job due to COVID-19 last year, she desperately sought other employment.

A former co-worker in the food processing firm where Kamikazi once worked introduced her to “agents”. They assured her she would find decent employment in the Middle East, but little did she know her co-worker had delivered her into the arms of human traffickers.

The following day, with her passport in hand, the 22-year-old approached the agent, who told her to pay about 300 US dollars as a facilitation fee.

“One day, I received a call from the agent who told me that I had to travel to Kenya where I would secure my visa to Kuwait,” Kamikazi told IPS.

At the border between Tanzania and Kenya, the young woman met other members of the human trafficking syndicate who helped her to cross into Kenya unnoticed before travelling by road to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.

In Nairobi, she and the ‘agents’ hid residential house with several other young women of different African nationalities. Driven by fear and desperation, she continued with the ruse until the group finally boarded a plane to Kuwait.

“I was told that domestic workers from our region (East Africa) were more highly valued in Kuwait than those from other countries,” she says.

Kamikazi recalls her arrival. The traffickers took their passports and held her and some other young women prisoner in an apartment.

“We believed them because my hope was that the new opportunity would help change my life for the better,” she told IPS.

However, her hopes for a better future were soon dashed.

She was “hired’ by a family – but found herself locked up and unpaid. And if it suited them, her employers would swap the domestic workers between themselves.

“I didn’t have any valid travel document, and I was treated like an animal being traded by one family to another,” she said. To make matters worse, she realised that her ex-colleague, whom she considered a close friend, was responsible for her situation.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), in most countries in the Middle East, domestic workers are excluded from labour law, which means they have no social, health or legal protection.

Domestic workers suffer from particularly arduous conditions, and their situation is all the more vulnerable because most countries have no laws governing their employment, the report said. Because they are excluded from labour law provisions, written employment contracts are not required.

Victims of human traffickers often become sexually exploited, forced into labour, slavery and can become victims of organ removal and sale.

Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) has warned that thousands of people fall prey to traffickers who portray themselves as recruitment agents. Vulnerable young women seeking greener pastures fall prey to these traffickers.

Latest estimates by UN Women indicate that while it’s challenging to get exact numbers of victims, the vast majority of detected trafficking victims are women and girls, and three out of four are trafficked for sexual exploitation.

Recent cases of maids being mistreated and assaulted by their employers in the Middle East have shone a light on domestic workers’ hidden and unregulated conditions.

In many cases, these women work illegally, which means they have little protection if their employers abuse them.

With tears in her eyes, Kamikazi remembers her first hours with her new employee.

“After confiscating my passport, I was told to stay at home (…) I was like in a cage,” Kamikazi said.

A typical working day started as early as 4 am and ended at midnight or later. There were no days off, and there was no going out unless to accompany the family somewhere.

“I had to take care of the house pets in addition to cooking, cleaning, washing clothes (…) I wanted to escape because I was abused by my employer but had no idea where to turn,” she said.

Whereas Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) findings indicate that the majority of the victims are intercepted at the point of exit – either at the airport or the different border points of the country – evidence shows there are cases where young women are trafficked to neighbouring countries as a transit for commercial sexual exploitation in the Gulf countries.

An investigation by law enforcement institutions in Rwanda found at least 47 local-based syndicate members were trafficking women from Rwanda to work abroad. As a result, 49 individuals, including company owners, were arrested and prosecuted in courts of law in 2018, according to judicial reports.

The trend shows an upward trajectory, with 131 trafficking victims identified in 2020, compared with 96 victims in 2019.

Like Kamikazi, most human trafficking victims are enticed from villages and towns with false promises of gainful employment abroad.

Studies have proven that when families are economically unstable, the vulnerability of children increases. Traffickers prey on such families by making false promises of a new job, augmented income, better living conditions and financial support abroad.

Even though Rwanda has a strict anti-trafficking law that penalises sex and labour trafficking with up to 15 years of imprisonment, the RIB Secretary-General, Jeannot Ruhunga, is convinced that trafficking, especially women and children, continues to be a serious challenge faced by the international community.

Speaking during the workshop ‘Law enforcement officers & Criminal Justice practitioners’ workshop under the theme: Combating Trafficking in Human Beings with a Multi-stakeholders’ approach for Central and East Africa, the senior Rwandan police investigator noted that organised trafficking in persons is transboundary. It’s a global problem but seriously affects Central and East Africa.

“The most important is about how countries work together to address challenges encountered during the investigation and prosecution of this transboundary offence and to strengthen cooperation and mutual assistance,” Ruhunga said.

According to data from the Rwanda Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration, the majority of suspected human trafficking victims identified in Rwanda were from Burundi (62.7%), followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) (15%) and Rwanda (13.6%).

Case data by the National Public Prosecution Authority reveal between 2016 and 2018, most perpetrators were male (63%), with females still comprising a substantial percentage of traffickers (37%).

The 2019 study conducted by Rwandan NGO Never Again Rwanda stresses that the effective management of national borders constitutes a critical component of inhibiting human trafficking because it functions to deter criminals and identify victims.

The research found that the primary transit countries for trafficking in East Africa are Uganda, Kenya, and, to a lesser extent, Tanzania. Uganda ranks first, followed by Kenya and Tanzania as destinations for trafficking.

Dr Joseph Ryarasa Nkurunziza, Executive Director of Never Again Rwanda, told IPS that awareness and education are key to beating human trafficking in Rwanda.

“Awareness is important considering that the pandemic has worsened the situation for many vulnerable groups which are now more prone to human trafficking,” Nkurunziza said.

For Kamikazi, her ordeal has come to an end. After being forced to work night and day and kept prisoner in her employer’s home, she was rescued after asking assistance from a businesswoman in Kuwait.

Her rescuer contacted the Rwandan Embassy in Dubai.

“It seemed like my employer didn’t want to give back my passport, but the Kuwait Police told them to give it to me.”

*Kamikazi’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN )  is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

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Nina has found peace after being rescued from human traffickers and pimps in Goa, India. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/IPS

By Mehru Jaffer
Goa, India, Jan 3 2022 (IPS)

For over two decades, Nina tossed around like a leaf in a storm. While a teenager, she was lured into the sex trade, and pimps kept a huge chunk of the money that she earned as a sex slave. Nina was often bruised. Once, she refused sex with a man who did not want to use a condom. He beat her so severely that she had found it difficult to breathe.

One day the police raided the premises where Nina and other girls were kept as prisoners and arrested the pimps. The girls were taken to a protective home run by the local government. She like many other trafficked women abused alcohol and smoked to drown her sorrows.

Nina is now in her thirties and cured of her addictions. Her life is comfortable compared with her twenties when she was forced to live in the company of traffickers and pimps.

Lisa Pires of the Presentation Sisters Order told IPS that she had first met Nina in 2019. However, Pires declined to share Nina’s name and whereabouts. Today both government officials and social activists jealously guard the identity of all trafficking survivors who struggle to lead normal lives.

The survivors need help to deal with post-rescue trauma, and the experience they go through during identification interviews and legal proceedings is painful. Some face re-victimisation and are punished for crimes traffickers force them to commit. Others are stigmatised and don’t have a support system.

“We are happy to share stories of victims without revealing their exact identity as society needs to listen and to learn from those who have survived trafficking,” adds Amala Kulandaisamy, 40, social activist and administrative head at the Nagoa centre.

The Presentation Sisters have been working in Goa since 1967.

Amala Kulandaisamy and Lisa Pires from the Nagoa Centre for the rehabilitation of trafficked persons in Goa. The centre is run by the Order of the Presentation Sisters. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/IPS

The Nagoa Centre opened in 2001 in the ancestral home of Pires. Her parents gifted the 110-year-old house to the Order of the Presentation Sisters.

Pires joined the order in 1958 and shares her concerns about what is happening to young women today.

Nina’s story is similar to that of countless Indian women from poverty-stricken parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) trafficked to Goa for commercial sexual exploitation, Pires says.

Surrounded by half a dozen starving siblings, a mother with mental health issues and an alcoholic father, Nina had fled her village when she was barely 15 years old. Soon after, a gang of boys picked up the vulnerable Nina. They promised her a job in Goa.

Goa is considered a significant destination in India for human trafficking and related commercial sexual work. Girls and women are trafficked to Goa from most states in India, including the countryside near Goa. They are also trafficked from Nepal, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Russia, and Thailand. While fewer women are trafficked from Nepal, the number of those sold and bought from Bangladesh increased.

The sex work is primarily concentrated in the coastal belt of North Goa, with maximum rescue operations by the police taking place around the stunningly beautiful beaches of Calangute and Arjuna. Now commercial sex work is said to be spreading from the tourist areas of the coastal belt of North Goa to the mainland and away from tourist hubs.

Throughout last year, Pires worked to reduce trafficking. The theme for 2021 was Victims’ Voices Lead the Way, with social activists spending time with human trafficking survivors counselling them. The survivors are seen as key in the fight against human trafficking. The theme focused on preventing the crime, identifying, and rescuing survivors, and supporting them on the road to rehabilitation.

Local people are encouraged to check the background of those wanting to rent accommodation and ensure that tenants are not part of any human trafficking activity.

The Presentation Sisters are diligent in their work against the trafficking of women and children and sensitive to their sexual exploitation. They provide alternative employment opportunities to survivors and constantly raise awareness against this organised crime.

A vital exercise today is to document the experience of survivors without revealing their identities.

The idea is to turn the suggestions of survivors into concrete action – a more survivor-centred approach to combat human trafficking and encourage lawmakers to pass legislation that will better protect citizens vulnerable to sexual exploitation and ensure they receive justice.

They say that there is a need for stricter regulation of massage parlours and dance bars where sexual exploitation of the vulnerable is high.

ARZ, based in Vasco, Goa that recommends women engaged in commercial sexual activities be rescued and not arrested by the police. It recommends, among other things, the speedy trial of offences under the Immoral Prevention Act and the establishment of a special court that will convict offenders – who generally get away unpunished.

ARZ is the publisher of Beautiful Women, a book about ten inspiring stories of women who survived the sex trade and some of whom are employed at Swift Wash, a laundry founded by the organisation.

Nina is fortunate. She survived the exploitation and has recently visited Potta, a well-known temple town in Kerala. Here she experienced spiritual calm and has returned to Goa to find a regular job as a caretaker in a private home.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

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By Sam Olukoya
BENIN CITY, Nigeria, Dec 17 2021 (IPS)

Miriam* hoped for a better life in Europe. Instead, her journey ended in Libya, where, double-crossed by traffickers she was raped and abused.  She has returned to Nigeria and shared her experiences with Sam Olukoya.

Miriam fell pregnant and gave birth to a son. In this short documentary, she tells of the growing love for her child, whom she describes as “a very cool guy”.
(*Not her real name)

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which “takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms”.

GSN originated in the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on December 2, 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

Follow @IPSNewsUNBureau