A survivor of child trafficking in Bihar, India. Extreme poverty, illiteracy and socio-economic inequalities are the main drivers of child trafficking for forced or bonded labour. [captured via videolink] Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

By Neena Bhandari
SYDNEY, Australia, Mar 29 2021 (IPS)

Twelve-year-old Babloo’s (Name changed) parents, who worked as daily wage agricultural labourers in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, were finding it difficult to feed their family of six. They had recently lost their eldest son to sudden illness, when a distant relative convinced them to send Babloo with him to work in a city. He promised to pay Rs 5000 ($70) a month, a significant amount for the impoverished family.

The relative took Babloo and his 14-year-old cousin from the village and handed them to a trafficker, who took them by rail to Jaipur, capital of the western Indian state of Rajasthan, nearly 1200 kilometre away from their home.

“We were locked in a small room. The windows were sealed and there was no natural light. There were 10 other children already there. We were made to grind glass stones and then stick the stone embellishments and beads on lac bangles from 6am till midnight everyday,” Babloo tells IPS via Zoom from his village in Nawada district in southern Bihar.

“If we slackened out of fatigue, exhaustion or illness, we were beaten with a wooden pole. We would cry in agony and fear for our lives. But we were so terror stricken that we didn’t attempt to escape,” adds Babloo, who was trafficked in 2018 and rescued after six months in 2019.

Extreme poverty, illiteracy and socio-economic inequalities are the main drivers of child trafficking for forced or bonded labour. Traffickers have been manipulating vulnerable rural families by using relatives or giving reference of a relative to gain their trust.

“There is only one breadwinner in some families with six to eight children. These families, seeking a better life, become easy targets of traffickers, who have started recruiting fewer than four children at a time to evade suspicion from authorities,” Kanhaiya Kumar Singh, Director of Tatvasi Samaj Nyas, a Bihar-based NGO, tells IPS via WhatsApp.

Children comprised one-third of the overall 48,478 detected victims of trafficking in 106 countries, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2020.

Though Bihar has formulated a comprehensive action plan, Astitva, for preventing and combating human trafficking and rehabilitation of the victims and survivors, similar fate awaited Ramu (name changed). He was trafficked at the age of 13 years in 2017 with another boy from his village and two others from a nearby village in Nalanda district (Bihar). They were also taken to Jaipur to work in a bangle-making sweatshop.

“We were always hungry because we were given limited food twice a day. If we requested to speak with our family, we were verbally abused and thrashed. I still get nightmares,” Ramu, who was rescued in 2018, tells IPS via Zoom from his village.

These children are amongst the fortunate ones to have been rescued by law enforcement agencies with the support of other government departments and civil society organisations, including the Child Labour Free Jaipur (CLFJ) initiative. CLFJ is a multi-stakeholder partnership, which has been working with the government, businesses, non-governmental organisations and local communities in Jaipur and Bihar to end child labour.

Almost 80 percent of trafficked children rescued from garment, handicrafts and jewellery sweatshops and factories of Jaipur, are from Bihar, one of the country’s poorer states. In 2019, 261 boys and 33 girls were rescued in Bihar and 636 boys and 17 girls were rescued in Rajasthan.

“Children rescued from Jaipur are repatriated to Bihar, where we help them reintegrate in their community with measures such as, enrolling them in school, providing them vocational training, helping them with access to victim compensation and government entitlements, and assisting them and their families to pursue legal cases against the traffickers,” says Abhijit De, Programme Advisor for CLFJ based in Patna (Bihar).

These boys are now part of CLFJ’s Survivors’ Collective, which meets twice a month. “We provide them with skills and training to become advocates for anti-trafficking in their own communities,” De tells IPS via Zoom.

A survivor of child trafficking. Traffickers have been manipulating vulnerable rural families by using relatives or giving references from a relative to gain their trust. [captured via videolink] Credit: Neena Bhandari/IPS

Ramu, who is studying in Year 8, wants to be a policeman. “I want to protect my family and villagers from criminals, especially traffickers, so no child has to experience the torture that I did,” he tells IPS via Zoom. His fellow survivor, Babloo, who has been enrolled in Year 5, wants to become a doctor. “Our village only has a dispensary. The hospital is too far away and many people die for want of proper medical care,” he tells IPS via Zoom.

Another survivor, sixteen-year-old Veer (name changed), who was also freed from a workshop in Jaipur, wants to be a farmer. “We don’t have enough to eat that is why we are easily deceived by traffickers. I want to study agriculture and improve crop production,” he tells IPS via Zoom from his village in Nalanda district.

“If these children can receive their [state] compensation amounts as soon as possible or within six months of being rescued, it would fast track their rehabilitation and further reduce re-trafficking. Now we have less than two percent re-trafficking rate amongst this survivors’ group,” De tells IPS via Zoom.

“Time lag in receiving compensation has been a major challenge,” agrees Sanjay Kumar, Chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Nalanda District. CWC is the statutory body tasked with dealing with children in need of care and protection.

Seventeen-year-old Ali (Name changed), who was trafficked in 2019 from Katihar district (Bihar), was escorted by CLFJ to Jaipur to provide testimony in a court case against the trafficker. “It was terrifying to come face-to-face with the trafficker. He kept making signs, telling us not to say anything against him in court,” he tells IPS via Zoom from his village. Now courts are pioneering the use of video testimony by child survivors of trafficking to provide them effective protection from potential intimidation or retaliation.

“There have been six convictions against child traffickers, four with life sentences between August 2019 and December 2020 in Jaipur. These convictions really send a strong message to deter the traffickers, and it helps everyone to see that child exploitation is no longer accepted and tolerated,” Ginny Baumann, Senior Program Manager with The Freedom Fund, tells IPS via WhatsApp.

In 2019, 27 traffickers were chargesheeted, [A charge-sheet is a final report prepared by the investigation or law enforcement agencies for proving the accusation of a crime in a court of law] by the police in Bihar, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

“The biggest problem is that cases can take several years to be decided. It puts survivors, their families and civil society assisting them in the prosecution of traffickers at grave risk. We have formed voluntary Community Vigilance Committees, which alert villagers if they see anyone suspicious looking for soft targets to traffic,” says Singh via WhatsApp.

According to the NCRB’s Crime in India 2019 Snapshot, there were 2,914 children out of a total of 6,616 victims reported to have been trafficked. In Bihar, 180 people trafficked were for forced labour, 59 for domestic servitude and 50 for sexual exploitation and prostitution.

“Many boys trafficked for labour may sometimes also be sexually abused,” Priti Patkar, co-founder of Prerana Anti-Trafficking Centre in Mumbai, tells IPS via WhatsApp.

The UNODC’s 2018 findings confirm the 15-year trend of changing age and sex composition of detected victims. The share of children has increased to over 30 per cent of detected victims and the share of boys detected has risen significantly when compared to girls globally.

PM Nair, a career Indian Police Service officer and a national expert on human trafficking, emphasises the need for agencies – the police, the CWC, the district administration, the caregivers, and NGOs – in destination states to converge and liaise with the corresponding agencies in the source state, where the children have been returned.

“This lack of liaison has created a mess and it is impeding progress in stemming child trafficking,” Nair, who is currently with the Indian Police Foundation, tells IPS via WhatApp. “The post-rescue care is grossly inadequate and insensitive.”

“The Anti-Human Trafficking Units [an integrated taskforce of personnel from police and other departments, and the NGOs, in districts], together with Anti-Human Trafficking Clubs set up in the colleges across the country, Panchayats Against Human Trafficking [grassroots democratic institutions], and the NGOs including the Childline has the potential to be a dominant force against human predators and therefore all concerned must strengthen them and help the mission to end human slavery,” Nair adds.

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 globalisation of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking” and so forth.

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An older woman panhandles on a street in San Salvador. Criminal trafficking groups take advantage of vulnerable people, such as the destitute, to force them to beg. But in Central America, 80 percent of the victims of trafficking are women and girls, for purposes of sexual exploitation. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

By Edgardo Ayala
SAN SALVADOR, Nov 8 2019 (IPS)

Central America is an impoverished region rife with gang violence and human trafficking – the third largest crime industry in the world – as a major source of migrants heading towards the United States.

Human trafficking has had deep roots in Central America, especially in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, for decades, and increasingly requires a concerted law enforcement effort by the region’s governments to dismantle trafficking networks, and to offer support programmes for the victims.

The phenomenon “has become more visible in recent years, but not much progress has been made in the area of more direct attention to victims,” Carmela Jibaja, a Catholic nun with the Ramá Network against Trafficking in Persons, told IPS."We know that El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are countries with a heavy flow of undocumented migrants, which puts them at risk of becoming victims of trafficking." -- Carlos Morán

This Central American civil society organisation forms part of the Talita Kum International Network against Trafficking in Persons, based in Rome, which brings together 58 anti-trafficking organisations around the world.

Jibaja pointed out that “the biggest trafficking problem is at the borders, because El Salvador is a country that expels migrants,” as well as in tourism areas. The most recognised form of trafficking in the region is sexual exploitation, whose victims are women.

Carlos Morán, Interpol security officer and a member of the Honduran police Cybercrime Unit, concurs .

“We know that El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala are countries with a heavy flow of undocumented migrants, which puts them at risk of becoming victims of trafficking,” Morán told IPS while participating in a regional forum on the issue, hosted Nov. 4-8 by San Salvador.

The “Regional Seminar on Investigation Techniques and Protection of Victims of Trafficking in Persons” brought together officials from the office of the public prosecutor, police officers, legal experts and other key actors and experts from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, the countries that make up the so-called Northern Central American Triangle.

The objective is to strengthen capacities and good practices in the investigation of trafficking, especially when the crime is transnational in nature.

Morán and other participants in the meeting declined to talk about figures on the extent of trafficking in the region, due to the lack of reliable data.

Prosecutors, police officers, government officials, experts and representatives of social organisations from Central America are participating in a special seminar on human trafficking Nov. 4-8 to identify and coordinate joint efforts. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

Civil society supports victims

In the countries of the Northern Triangle there are government efforts to develop victim care programmes, but they are insufficient and civil society organisations have had to take up the challenge.

Mirna Argueta, executive director of the Association for the Self-Determination of Salvadoran Women (AS Mujeres), told IPS that “the problem is serious, because we are facing networks with great economic and political influence, and victims are not being protected,” and there are very few programmes to help with their reinsertion in society.

Her organisation has been working since 1996 with victims of trafficking, offering psychological and medical support, and is also an important ally of the Attorney-General’s Office in victim protection work.

AS Mujeres collaborates with the police and prosecutors when victims have to be moved from one place to another, in the most secretive way possible, especially when judicial cases against organised crime networks are underway.

In the past it has also offered shelter to women victims of trafficking, but now the prosecutor’s office does, said Argueta, who is also coordinator in El Salvador of the Latin American Observatory on Trafficking in Persons, which brings together 15 countries.

AS Mujeres’ victim care programme includes, in addition to psychological support, medical assistance which incorporates non-traditional techniques such as biomagnetism, performed by a physician specialising in this area, as well as massage and aromatherapy.

“Experience has shown us that with the combination of these three techniques, recovery is more effective, and care is more integral,” said Argueta.

She added that since the programme’s inception in 1996, it has served some 600 trafficking victims.

They currently offer support to five women, who IPS could not speak to because they are under legal protection, and providing their names or a telephone number for them has criminal consequences.

For the same reason, the public prosecutor’s office also vetoed conducting interviews with victims under its protection.

AS Mujeres also promotes a self-care network.

“When the victim has gone through different stages, we integrate her with other women and they can share their experiences, making it less painful, and helping them with their reinsertion in society,” Argueta added.

She said many victims feel they are “damaged,” or worthless, and they turn to prostitution.

Victims can spend anywhere from six months to two and a half years in the programme, depending on the complexity of each case. For example, there are women with acute problems of depression, suicidal thoughts and persecutory delusions.

According to figures from the United Nations office in Honduras, released in July, 80 percent of the victims of human trafficking in Central America are women and girls.

In El Salvador, 90 percent of cases involve sexual exploitation, according to official figures provided by the public prosecutor’s office during the regional forum in San Salvador.

However, other types of trafficking have been detected, such as labour exploitation, forced panhandling and others.

So far this year, the prosecution has reported 800 victims, cases that are still open.

Mirna Argueta (L), executive director of the Association for the Self-Determination of Salvadoran Women, and Catholic nun Carmela Jibaja, of the Central American Network against Trafficking in Persons, are two activists working to provide care for victims of trafficking, who are mostly women. Credit: Edgardo Ayala/IPS

In Guatemala, in 2018, the Public Prosecutor’s Office detected 478 possible victims of human trafficking, four percent more than the previous year. There were 276 reported cases, also an increase of four percent.

Children and adolescents continue to be vulnerable to trafficking, as 132 children and adolescents were detected as possible victims of human trafficking, 28 percent of the total, 111 of whom were rescued.

They were victims of illegal adoptions, labour exploitation, forced marriage, forced panhandling, sexual exploitation and forced labour or services. But the most invisible form of trafficking, according to the prosecutor’s office, is the recruitment of minors into organised crime.

Gangs involved in people trafficking

Experts consulted by IPS point out that many trafficking cases are the product of a relatively new phenomenon: involvement in trafficking by the gangs that are responsible for the crime wave in the three Northern Triangle countries.

The gangs have mutated into bona fide organised crime groups, with tentacles in the illicit drug trade, extortion rackets, “sicariato” or murder for hire and now human trafficking, among other criminal activities.

In El Salvador, it is common to hear stories in neighborhoods and towns controlled by gangs about young girls who gang leaders “ask for”, to be used as sex toys by the leaders and other members of the gang, and the families hand them over because they know that they could be killed if they don’t.

But the gangs go farther than that, forcing their victims to provide sexual services for profit, another aspect of trafficking.

Official figures from the National Council against Trafficking in Persons, which brings together government agencies to combat the phenomenon, indicate that in 2018 there were 46 confirmed victims, 43 police investigations and 38 judicial proceedings.

The trials led to four convictions and two acquittals. The rest are still winding their way through court, according to the Council’s Work Report 2018.

The document also reported that the attention to victims included programmes to help them launch small enterprises, as well as measures of integral reparations for families of children and adolescents in the shelters.

Emergency response teams were also coordinated to provide assistance to victims, whether the women are foreigners or nationals.

El Salvador is part of the Regional Coalition against Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants, along with Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

Honduras has also provided support for economic reinsertion, offering seed capital to set up small jewelry businesses, among others, said Interpol’s Morán.

At least 337 people from Honduras have been rescued since 2018, including 13 in Belize and Guatemala, according to a report by the Inter-Institutional Commission Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Trafficking in Persons in Honduras.

Excerpt:

Rescuing a sex worker and institutionalising or criminalising them is not a solution | Picture courtesy: Sanjog.

By Uma Chatterjee
KOLKATA, India, Sep 18 2019 (IPS)

Human trafficking is perhaps one of the most well-organised crimes being committed in India. How else do we explain the phenomenon of adolescent girls and young women from remote villages across India being found in brothels in our cities?

This trend has sustained itself, despite laws that criminalise child sexual exploitation and trafficking, because of the demand for adolescents in the sex trade and the steady supply of girls from rural India, made vulnerable by poverty. Unforgivably, those who profit from trafficking the vulnerable enjoy impunity.

Where are the gaps in the fight against human trafficking?

Disorganised response to an organised crime

While the criminal network of trafficking is very well organised, the response of the police, the state, and nonprofits, is disorganised. The investigators entrusted with trafficking cases are from local police stations, which are essentially meant to maintain law and order and address issues of the precinct in which they are located. They are not meant to investigate crimes that are transborder. And so, the police investigate cases either at destination or source, but hardly ever in conjunction.

State governments also have no coordinated systems and work in silos. Over a decade ago, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued directives to state governments to create specialised investigation units, called the Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs). On paper, there are more than 220 AHTUs across the country, but less than five percent of them are notified.

This means that existing police officers have been given additional responsibility to man AHTUs, but do not have the time, resources, or infrastructure to investigate these cases. Bad investigations lead to low conviction rates, which break the morale of the police, who then avoid filing FIRs, because they believe it is a waste of their effort.

We often find that a child or a young person who gets victimised today may become part of the criminal network for her or his own survival tomorrow. For instance, brothel managers or madams, as they are known, have shared that they too were once trafficked, and recruited girls and women to work for them when they got older.

The investigators entrusted with trafficking cases are from local police stations, which are essentially meant to maintain law and order and address issues of the precinct in which they are located. They are not meant to investigate crimes that are transborder. And so, the police investigate cases either at destination or source, but hardly ever in conjunction.

Because this is stigmatised labour, there is no easy supply of younger women. Consequently, brothel managers rely on traffickers to supply young girls, which is where the demand lies.

When the state does manage to rescue girls and young women from sexual exploitation, they put them up in closed institutions that are referred to as shelter homes.

Shelter homes have however failed to rehabilitate survivors. They are unable to provide skills and training that make survivors employable with reasonable incomes, but instead make them feel punished and incarcerated.

In addition, sex workers are often in debt bondage. They cannot open bank accounts due to lack of proof of residence and are therefore unable to save and borrow through financial institutions.

This makes them dependent on moneylenders who operate in these communities and borrow at high interest rates of 25-50 percent. This keeps them in perpetual debt.

We need to invest in the financial and social inclusion of survivors. Rescuing a sex worker of 35 or 40 years of age and institutionalising or criminalising them is not a solution.

Laws on human trafficking—the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, the Bonded Labour Act, and even certain sections of the Indian Penal Code—have not been very successful in securing convictions or increasing rehabilitation for survivors of trafficking.

These laws criminalise brothel managers and employers, but not traffickers. They try to fight the crime at one end (the destination) while allowing impunity at the other (the source).

What is the role of civil society in the anti-trafficking sector?

Most nonprofits working on human trafficking have taken over responsibilities of service delivery, such as running shelters, but do so amidst many challenges. They are dependent on either foreign funding or state budgets. With foreign funding many have created large facilities with a sizeable workforce, who are not always trained for the job.

Government funding for service delivery remains frugal and inefficiently disbursed. This leads to poor quality of services resulting in poor benefits to survivors. There needs to be a shift in the role of civil society organisations (CSOs) from being service providers to becoming facilitators. Five approaches that we advocate for are:

There is a tendency in the anti-trafficking sector to label survivors of trafficking as ‘victims’, who need to be protected and spoken for. Nonprofits must transition out of being ‘saviours’ and focus on building leadership among survivors, encouraging them to fight for their rights and services from panchayats and governments.

There is an assumption that survivors do not want to come to the fore or show their faces. In my experience, survivors seldom feel the shame that our society associates with them. When CSOs help them to resist and challenge stigma, they reject that shaming and are able to fight for their own justice.

Instead of being the voice for survivors, nonprofits must assist them to speak for themselves. Often, nonprofits themselves treat sex work as a sin or a reason to feel shame. However, when trafficking gets treated as a crime, the strategies to fight it will be different.

The focus will shift from saving survivors, to empowering them to fight through robust legal aid, training, sharing information, collectivising, collaborating, and so on. As leadership gets built among survivors’ groups, they will take the lead in this effort.

India has a strong provision for compensating survivors, but it is poorly implemented. According to the State Legal Services Authority, no compensation has been awarded to survivors of trafficking in many states, because there were no applications.

This happens because survivors do not know that they are entitled to compensation and are unable to secure legal aid to access these funds. The Nirbhaya Fund of the central government, which pays for this, has been poorly used by many state governments and nonprofits.

But some lawyers like Kaushik Gupta and Anirban Tarafdar have managed to secure compensation amounting to INR 4 to 6 lakhs. This enables survivors to pay for their own rehabilitation rather than having to depend on CSOs.

The focus of rehabilitation for governments and nonprofits has been on shelter homes. But it needs to shift to helping survivors return to their families, and then helping the families combat stigma and poverty, and claim services from panchayats, police, and healthcare providers. Working in groups and collectives helps to fight stigma and challenge traffickers.

To effectively counter human trafficking, nonprofits working separately in source and destination areas must come together. This is an opportunity for larger organisations to play the role of the facilitator—bring together organisations from the villages as well as those working in red-light areas in cities, so that they can communicate with each other and coordinate their efforts.

There will be barriers to this, such as language and mobility, and nonprofits can work to remove them. Nonprofits can also facilitate dialogue between survivor leaders and the state. Instead of speaking on behalf of survivors, nonprofits can bring survivor leaders to the same platform as parliamentarians, so that they can speak for themselves, and present their concerns using their own voice.

For any kind of policy advocacy or activism against a social issue, evidence is key. Here, nonprofits can play the role of researcher, evidence builder, and synthesiser of information. They can then arm survivors’ groups with this information.

For instance, government departments often release legal and policy documents, which have a direct bearing on the lives of survivors, but which could be difficult for them to understand.

We, at Sanjog, took one such document, translated it to Bengali, because the survivors’ groups that we were working with were from West Bengal. We took each clause of that document, and explained its implications through the use of examples, over a 3-day workshop. As a result, they are now better equipped to negotiate with the government for their rights and justice and can respond to questions that are thrown at them.

What lies ahead?

The MHA has introduced a National Investigation Agency (Amendment) Bill (NIA), which, despite being controversial, promises to investigate human trafficking cases and improve infrastructure in the judiciary for prosecution. We wait to see how these cases will be referred to the NIA, how the NIA will engage with the AHTUs, the role boundaries and convergence issues, etc.

The previous government tried to reform the law in human trafficking, but the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018 lapsed, and it is yet to be seen whether the present government will revive it. Perhaps there will be changes made based on earlier objections, particularly on issues of shelter homes and lack of community-based rehabilitation.

Meanwhile, there are organisations that help survivors of human trafficking form their own collectives and create SHGs and federations; and leadership is emerging from these groups. The volume of discussion on trafficking in the past two years is unprecedented.

The media and the parliamentarians are talking about it, and while it hasn’t yet become a mass issue, it is no more just a social sector issue. These are all positive developments, and herein lies the dream of making our societies free of human trafficking.

This story was originally published by India Development Review (IDR)

Excerpt:

By IPS World Desk
ROME, Jul 25 2019 (IPS)

The darkest underbelly of human existence hides right in front of us – modern day slaves are the foundation of the third largest criminal economy on the planet.

As media consumption in the West is drawn to negative, sensational and explosive headlines, sinister realities escape our attention. This applies to reporting on human trafficking in the developing world, where stories center around organ trafficking, sweat shops and the sex industry.

The International Labour Organization estimates that 21 million men, women and children are enslaved and trafficked around the world today. Close to 70% of these people are exploited in industrial sectors like mining, construction, agriculture and domestic work, creating profits of $150 Billion annually.

3.7 million people are victims of of forced labour in Africa, but the Asia-Pacific region accounts for the largest number of modern day slaves in the world, at 11.7 million people.

In a digitally desensitized society, we fail to comprehend the scale of a problem that exists in plain sight.

According to the U.S. State Department, “human trafficking can be found in a favourite restaurant, a hotel, downtown, a farm, or in [a] neighbour’s home.”

In the United Kingdom, an estimated 136,000 people are exploited with poor wages and atrocious living conditions. The National Crime Agency finds victims predominantly from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, working in car washes, construction, farming and food processing. Disturbingly, it suggests that someone going about their normal day in the UK will come across a victim of human trafficking but will never recognize them as such.

A 2018 report by the Global Slavery Index found that almost half a million (403,000) people are trapped in modern day slavery in the United States – seven times more than previously reported. The index also highlights forced marriages, noting that women and girls make up 71% of people trapped in modern-day slavery today.

The persistence of this tragedy is at the root of its being addressed by the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations. The Global Sustainability Network, an international consortium that works closely with the Vatican and Church of England, is one of many organizations attempting to bring a seismic shift in awareness and a willingness to act to save human dignity.

With individuals, educators, charity institutions, businesses and Governments each taking incremental steps towards realizing The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, it will be possible to curb this nefarious business.

The “bride shortage” in India and China has triggered trafficking as women are lured under false pretences and sold as brides. Pictured here are the rites of a Hindu marriage ceremony.

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 25 2019 (IPS)

Paradoxically, the world’s most populated countries are facing a population crisis: a woman shortage. And it’s women who are paying a brutal price for it.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the natural sex ratio at birth is approximately 105 boys to every 100 girls.

However, decades of gender discrimination, which favoured having boys over girls, has left India and China with 80 million more men than women.

“When women lack equal rights and patriarchy is deeply engrained, it is no surprise that parents choose to not to have daughters,” said Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) Senior Researcher in the Women’s Rights Division Heather Barr.

Now that there is a shortage of women doesn’t mean that women become more treasured or valued, she noted. Instead, there are very harmful consequences.

“[Women have] become a commodity which is in demand, so in demand that people will use violence to acquire it,” Barr told IPS.

“The stories we heard were really unbelievably shocking even after having spent many, many years on human rights issues,” she added.

The “bride shortage” has triggered trafficking as women are lured under false pretences and sold as brides.

Bordering China is Myanmar’s Kachin and northern Shan states which has seen iterations of conflicts over the last decade.

HRW found that traffickers often prey on women and girls in those regions, offering jobs in and transport to China. The women are then sold for 3,000 to 13,000 dollars to Chinese families struggling to find a bride for their sons.

Once purchased, women and girls are often locked in room and raped so that they can quickly provide a baby for the family.

Often times, women and girls are even sold by people they know—sometimes even by family members.

“The idea that there is a situation, a set of social pressures, a sense of lawlessness that is so extreme that it is causing people to sell their own relatives…it is shocking,” Barr said.

In India, bride trafficking has become common in the northern states such as Haryana which has only 830 girls to every 1,000 boys.

In a study, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found in over 10,000 households, over 9,000 married women in Haryana were brought from other States.

Most of those women came from poor villages in Assam, West Bengal, and Bihar where their families, desperate for money, struck deals with traffickers. There are also cases of girls being resold to other people after living a married life for a few years.

According to the 2016 National Crimes Records Bureau, almost 34,000 were kidnapped or abducted for the purpose of marriage across India, half of whom were under the age of 18.

While the immediate consequences for women are clear, there may also be long-term consequences of the distorted sex ratio.

“Part of the reason that we should be worrying about it is that we simply don’t know what the long-term consequences of this are. We don’t know how this might change societies, but this is something that is going to have an effect through generations,” Barr told IPS, highlighting the need for action including better prevention efforts and law enforcement on trafficking and violence against women.

But at the end of the day, governments must do more to address the root cause of the imbalance—gender discrimination.

Though sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, it is still a widespread practice in the country. In fact, approximately five to seven million sex-selective abortions are estimated to be carried out in the South Asian country every year.

China’s now two-child policy may also continue to pose a threat to women and girls, as well as the future stability of the country’s population.

“The most fundamental problem is gender inequality and most fundamental solution to this is that you have to change the dynamics in society that makes sons valued and daughters not valued,” Barr concluded.

Children from rural areas and disempowered homes are ideal targets for trafficking in India and elsewhere. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 9 2019 (IPS)

Human trafficking is on the rise and it is more “horrific” than ever, a United Nations agency found.

In a new report examining patterns in human trafficking, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that the global trend has increased steadily since 2010 around the world.

“Human trafficking has taken on horrific dimensions as armed groups and terrorists use it to spread fear and gain victims to offer as incentives to recruit new fighters,” said UNODC’s Executive Director Yury Fedotov.

Asia and the Americas saw the largest increase in identified victims but the report notes that this may also reflect an improved capacity to identify and report data on trafficking.

Women and girls are especially vulnerable, making up 70 percent of detected victims worldwide. While they are mainly adult women, girls are increasingly targeted by traffickers.

According to the 2018 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, girls account for 23 percent of all trafficking victims, up from 21 percent in 2014 and 10 percent in 2004.

UNODC also highlighted that conflict has increased the vulnerability of such populations to trafficking as armed groups were found to use the practice to finance activities or increase troops.   

Activist and U.N. Goodwill Ambassador Nadia Murad was among thousands of Yazidi women and girls who was abducted from her village and sold into sexual slavery by the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq, a tactic used in order to boost recruitment and reward soldiers. 

Murad recently received the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, dedicating it to survivors of sexual violence and genocide.

“Survivors deserve a safe and secure pathway home or safe passage elsewhere. We must support efforts to focus on humanity, and overcome political and cultural divisions. We must not only imagine a better future for women, children and persecuted minorities, we must work consistently to make it happen – prioritising humanity, not war,” she said.

“The fact remains that the only prize in the world that can restore our dignity is justice and the prosecution of criminals,” Murad added.

Sexual exploitation continues to be the main purpose for trafficking, account for almost 60 percent, while forced labor accounts for approximately 34 percent of all identified cases.

Three-quarters of all female victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation globally.

The report also found for the first time that the majority of trafficked victims are trafficked within their own countries of citizenship.

The share of identified domestic victims has more than doubled from 27 percent in 2010 to 58 percent in 2016.

This may be due to improved border controls at borders preventing cross-border trafficking as well as a greater awareness of the different forms of trafficking, the report notes.

However, convictions have only recently started to grow and in many countries, conviction rates still remain worryingly low.

In Europe, conviction rates have dropped from 988 traffickers convicted in 2011 to 742 people in 2016.

During that same time period, the number of detected victims increased from 4,248 to 4,429.

There also continue to be gaps in knowledge and information, particularly in certain parts of Africa, Middle East, and East Asia which still lack sufficient capacity to record and share data on human trafficking.

“This report shows that we need to step up technical assistance and strengthen cooperation, to support all countries to protect victims and bring criminals to justice, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” Fedotov said at the report’s launch.

Adopted in 2015, the landmark SDGs include ambitious targets including the SDG target 16.2 which calls on member states to end abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence and torture against children.

SDG indicator 16.2.2 asks member states to measure the number of victims of human trafficking per 100,000 population and disaggregated by sex, age, and form of exploitation, reflecting the importance of improving data recording, collection, and dissemination.

“The international community needs to…stop human trafficking in conflict situations and in all our societies where this terrible crime continues to operate in the shadows,” Fedotov said.

“I urge the international community to heed Nadia [Murad]’s call for justice,” he added.

The Walk Free Foundation estimates that 45.8 million people, including millions of children, are subject to some form of modern slavery in the world. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Apr 5 2018 (IPS)

The Indian Union Cabinet has cleared the long-awaited Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, which proposes an imprisonment of 10 years to life term for those trafficking humans for the purpose of begging, marriage, prostitution or labour, among others. The bill will become a law once cleared by both houses of Parliament.

In a pioneering move, the ambit of the proposed legislation transcends mere punitive action to encompass rehabilitation as well. It provides for immediate protection of rescued victims entitling them to interim relief within 30 days. There are specific clauses to address the victims’ physical and mental trauma, education, skill development, health care as well as legal aid and safe accommodation."If implemented, the law could have far-reaching benefits, like curbing the underground labour industry and ensuring that fair wages are paid." --High Court advocate Aarti Kukreja

The National Investigation Agency, the country’s premier body combating terror, will perform the task of national anti-trafficking bureau. A Rehabilitation Fund is also being created to provide relief to the affected irrespective of criminal proceedings initiated against the accused or the outcome thereof.

“It’s a victory of the 1.2 million people who participated in 11,000 km long Bharat Yatra (India March) for this demand,” Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi said in a statement, referring to a month-long march he organised last year.

According to global surveys, human trafficking is the third largest organized crime violating basic human rights. The Australia-based human rights group The Walk Free Foundation’s 2016 Global Slavery Index points out that at a whopping 18.35 million, India leads the global tally for adults and children trapped in modern slavery.

Thousands of women and children are trafficked within India as well as well as neighbouring Nepal and Bangladesh. Some are enticed from villages and towns with false promises of gainful employment in the cities, while a large number of them are forcefully abducted by traffickers.

As trafficking is a highly organized crime involving interstate gangs, the bill proposes a district-level “anti-trafficking unit” with an “anti-trafficking police officer”, and a designated sessions court for speedy trials. The Bill also divides various offences into “trafficking” and “aggravated trafficking”. The former category of crimes carries a jail term of seven to 10 years while the latter can put the offenders in the clink for at least 10 years, extendable to life imprisonment.

Also, aggravated offences would include trafficking for the purpose of forced labour, begging, trafficking by administering chemical substance or hormones on a person for the purpose of early sexual maturity, trafficking of a woman or child for the purpose of marriage or under the pretext of marriage. The draft bill also moots three years in jail for abetting, promoting and assisting trafficking.

There is also a provision for a time-bound trial and repatriation of victims — within a period of one year from the time the crime is taken into cognisance.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, 8,100 cases of trafficking were recorded in India in 2016 with 23,000 trafficking victims being rescued last year. However, experts say the figures fail to reflect the true magnitude of the crime. The actual figures, say activists, could be much higher as many victims do not register cases with the police for lack of legal knowledge or due to fear from traffickers.

India’s West Bengal state – which shares a porous border with poorer neighbours Bangladesh and Nepal and is a known human trafficking hub – registered more than one-third of the total number of victims in 2016. Victims were also trafficked for domestic servitude, forced marriage, begging, drug peddling and the removal of their organs, the NCRB figures showed.

Worsening the crisis are the growing demands of a burgeoning services industry in India which recruit the abducted without a system of proper vetting, say experts. This practise is directly responsible for the spiralling number of human trafficking cases reported in India. It is here that the new proposed law can go a long way in combating human trafficking.

“If implemented, the law could have far-reaching benefits, like curbing the underground labour industry and ensuring that fair wages are paid,” says High Court advocate Aarti Kukreja.

The Walk Free Foundation estimates that 45.8 million people, including millions of children, are subject to some form of modern slavery in the world, compared to 35.8 million in 2014, a concern that affects large swathes of South Asia. But significantly, there is no specific law so far to deal with this crime. Experts hope the proposed legislation will make India a pioneer in formulating a comprehensive legislation to combat the trafficking menace.

Currently, trafficking in India is covered by loophole-ridden laws that enables miscreants to give the law a slip. According to New Delhi-based social activist Vrinda Thakur, the new initiative’s comprehensive nature will help tackle trafficking more effectively.

“All previous legislation dealing with human trafficking treated traffickers as well as the trafficked as criminals. This was bizarre. It prevented the victims from coming forward to report the crime. However, as per the proposed new law, the first of its kind in India, victims will be offered assistance and protection,” elaborates Thakur.

As part of the government’s larger mission to control trafficking, some measures are already underway. An online platform has been created to trace missing children and bilateral anti-human trafficking pacts have been signed with Bangladesh and Bahrain. The government is also working with charities and non-profits to train law enforcement officers. The proposed new law will act as a force multiplier to take these efforts further.

Kukreja elaborates that the Bill has an in-built mechanism to eschew antiquated and bureaucratic legislature that currently bedevils law enforcement in India.

“It will unify existing laws, prioritise survivors’ needs and provide for special courts to expedite cases,” she says.

By whittling down human trafficking in South Asia and deterring traffickers with high penalties, labour practices will decline, giving abducted women and children the chance to better their future, contributing to the country’s economic and social development.

With a Nicaraguan flag in the background, passports from Nicaragua, with the silhouette of Central America on its cover, are held up. The country’s southern border with Costa Rica is closed by a "containment wall" policy that keeps out migrants travelling from South America towards the United States. Credit: José Adán Silva / IPS

By José Adán Silva
MANAGUA, Feb 15 2018 (IPS)

Nicaragua’s “containment wall”, aimed at bolstering internal security, has been successful with regard to the fight against transnational crime. But its victims are migrants who are relentlessly blocked from passing through the country en route to their destination: the United States.

A situation that also represents a paradox, given that Nicaragua is the Central American country with the largest number of nationals living abroad, second only to El Salvador.

Roberto Orozco, a former social researcher at the Managua-based think tank Institute for Strategic Studies and Public Policies, and current independent consultant on security issues, reminded IPS that the origin of Nicaragua’s current migration policy lies in the crisis unleashed in the region in November 2015."It is an issue that often exceeds the capacity of a State more used to being a country that generates large numbers of migrants, than a country of transit or temporary stay of migrants." -- Ricardo de León Borges

At that time, a wave of migrants seeking to reach the United States before that country stiffened its immigration policy generated a crisis to which several Central American countries, as well as Colombia and Mexico, sought a solution.

But the government in Managua, headed since 2007 by the Sandinista National Liberation Front’s (FSLN) Daniel Ortega, refused to participate in joint actions to facilitate the mobility of the 3,000 Cubans who had been stranded in Costa Rica, on the border with Nicaragua.

This country deployed police and military troops, as well as border guards, to block access by the migrants, and created an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the region, which was only solved with measures from other governments to allow migrants to continue their journey without passing through Nicaragua.

Ortega and Nicaragua’s military and police brass have explained that the containment wall consists of the coordinated use of the armed forces and the State institutions involved in the fight against organised crime: drug trafficking, terrorism, human trafficking, smuggling of undocumented migrants, and other threats to national security.

Orozco argued that the closure of Nicaragua’s southern border, blocking the passage of people – not of Cubans today, but of Africans, South Americans, and Haitians among others – has since late 2015 benefited Mexico, antechamber to the migrants’ target: the United States. It also benefited the U.S., Nicaragua’s main trade and aid partner.

But he questioned the effectiveness of the containment wall in reducing the flow of migrants through the continent, as well as the activity of the “coyotes” or human traffickers, and noted that there is a lack of official information on the matter, from government agencies, the police and the army, as IPS confirmed.

The only hard data was provided in September 2017 by the Nicaraguan army’s commander-in-chief, General Julio César Avilés, at a ceremony in Managua celebrating the anniversary of the armed forces.

“In the fight against illegal migration, 4,579 migrants were detained, the vast majority of whom came from countries in Africa and the Middle East, and were trying to reach the United States,” he said at the time.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) states that some 800,000 citizens of Nicaragua live abroad and 40,000 migrate every year. The main reason for Nicaraguan emigration is poverty, which according to the latest World Bank figures affects 29.6 percent of the population. Credit: José Adán Silva / IPS

Ricardo de León Borge, dean of the Faculty of Legal Sciences and Humanities at the American College, told IPS that “indeed, Nicaragua’s immigration policy responds in the first place to safeguarding the interests of the Nicaraguan population, safeguarding their security and integrity within the national territory.”

In his opinion, the containment wall policy aims to “ensure that undocumented migrants move through our country in an orderly manner, so that they are not part of the sad statistics of people swindled by the ‘coyotes’ involved in a dangerous network of traffickers and organised crime.”

But De León Borge said that irregular migration is controlled not only with laws or hard-line policies. “It is an issue that often exceeds the capacity of a State more used to being a country that generates large numbers of migrants, than a country of transit or temporary stay of migrants,” he said.

Achievements beyond migration

But the academic stressed that the “iron fist” policy, beyond the issue of migration, has provided the desired effects in terms of security.

Nicaragua is now proud to have the highest safety rates in Central America: a homicide rate of six per 100,000 inhabitants in 2017, the lowest in the last 15 years, according to the National Police.

“Both Nicaragua, as well as its neighbours in Central America, Mexico and the United States, benefit from a containment wall that provides tangible results, based on the laws that govern the issue of migration against non-traditional threats to the security of States and people, such as drug trafficking, gangs, trafficking in persons or organs, and human smuggling,” De León Borge said.

Collateral damage: human rights

However, behind the containment wall policy, abuses and violations of human rights are reported, according to the non-governmental Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights.

Gonzalo Carrión, a lawyer with the NGO, told IPS that the Nicaraguan state has criminalised illegal migration and has made it more dangerous for travelers seeking to cross the country en route to the United States.

To illustrate, he mentioned three cases: the forced expulsion of thousands of Cubans and Africans at the end of 2015, the death by drowning of 12 African migrants in 2016, who sought to circumvent the controls through Lake Nicaragua, and the trial of a Cameroonian woman who was arrested in December 2017.

Marie Frinwie Atanga is originally from Cameroon and a resident of Belgium, from where she traveled to Nicaragua in 2017 to claim the body of her 20-year-old migrant son, who was shot dead in southern Nicaragua in an alleged clash between a border patrol and a group of “coyotes”, who were transporting migrants from Costa Rica to Honduras.

She was detained and accused of belonging to an international migrant smuggling ring, and could face up to 12 years in prison, which Carrión considers to be “a legal and moral barbarism of Nicaragua against migrants.”

In addition, under the containment wall policy, the authorities have prohibited local residents from helping migrants in transit and have even brought criminal charges – of collaboration with human trafficking – against people who have provided food, water or clothing to migrants who were abandoned by the coyotes and were in a risky situation.

For Carrión, the heavy-handed approach on migration runs counter to the history of Nicaragua, a country with a population of 6.3 million people, since 11 percent of its inhabitants live and work abroad, mainly in the United States, Costa Rica, Panama and Spain.

That, according to a 2017 report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), makes it the second source of migrants from Central America, only behind El Salvador, which has 24 percent of its citizens abroad, while Honduras is third, with seven percent, followed by Guatemala (6.5 percent), Panama (four percent) and Costa Rica (3.5 percent).

Nicaragua has a poverty rate of 29.6 percent, according to the latest figures from the World Bank, which places it as one of the three poorest countries in the Americas. This year, this nation expects to receive 1.424 billion dollars in migrant remittances, 3.5 percent more than in 2017, according to data from the country’s Central Bank.

Nazir (left) and Usman both returned to Ghana from Libya in 2011, among some 19,000 Ghanaians who fled back home. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

By Kwaku Botwe
KWAME DANSO, Ghana, Feb 6 2018 (IPS)

Thirty-year-old Nazir Mohammed sits on one of the two sofas in his single room in Kwame Danso, a small town about 290 kilometres north of Ghana’s capital Accra, reflecting on life back in Libya.

“Libya offers great economic opportunities to West African migrants, but the human rights abuse, especially of dark-skinned Africans, is real. I will not advise even my enemy to go to Libya,” Mohammed says.“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

He is among some 19,000 Ghanaians who were repatriated from Libya about seven years ago. Mohammed left home at 23 after completing high school. Having lost his father a few months before, he felt the responsibility of taking care of his mother and four other siblings naturally fell on him as an older male child.

“I just heard that if I get about 500 cedis (about 100 dollars) I would be able to get to Libya. And that meant a lot of hard work. So I did some construction work to gather that money,” he said. “My mom and family only got to know of my intentions when I called and told her. I was already halfway on my journey. She cried but later prayed for me since there was nothing she could do.”

Most young people set off on the trip without telling family members, anticipating they wouldn’t be supportive because of the risks.

Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria, Niger and Cote d’Ivoire all have a large number of their citizens among the almost one million migrants trapped in Libya. Mohammed’s home region, Brong Ahafo – which is in the middle belt of Ghana – has the highest number of people migrating to Libya. Most, like Mohammed, hope to use Libya as a transit point to Europe.

The Back Story

The history of Ghana–Libya migration dates back to the 1980s when the Ghanaian government signed a bilateral agreement with its Libyan counterpart to send some 200 Ghanaian teachers to teach English in Libya, according to researchers at the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana, Leander Kandilige and Geraldine Adiku.

This arrangement was also necessitated by the mass expulsion of illegal immigrants, mostly from West African countries, including about two million Ghanaians, from Nigeria in 1983. In the initial stages, the Libyan authorities offered employment to only highly skilled Ghanaian immigrants.

But the availability of job opportunities for other low-skilled migrants attracted many more Ghanaians who entered Libya through informal routes such as the Sahara Desert. As a result, the Libyan authorities clamped down on illegal migration amidst forced repatriations.

Before the 2011 Libyan political crisis, the Libyan authorities were already dealing with illegal immigrants and concomitant attacks, especially on black migrants. In 2006, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) set up a voluntary return program to arrange for the return of stranded undocumented migrants from Libya to their countries of origin.

Statistics at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration indicate that on Oct. 8, 2000, the first group of 238 Ghanaians fleeing attacks arrived in Ghana, with harrowing tales of gross human rights abuses. The influx has continued. Last year, 565 people returned with similar stories.

But the biggest evacuation of migrants happened in 2011 in the heat of the Libyan crisis, when IOM figures show that about 19,000 Ghanaians were evacuated back to Ghana. Many migrants attributed this exodus to increased hostility against black Africans. The political instability and challenge to the authority of Muammar Qaddafi offered a prime opportunity for some Libyan nationals – who see the Libyan leader as a shield for black Africans and have accused Qaddafi of using them as mercenaries – to attack dark-skinned people.

“It was very dangerous to be spotted as a black African,” said Mohammed. He said a lot of migrants left properties behind and several months of salary arrears from companies they worked for. Nazil says it is common practice for companies to pay migrant workers about two months’ salary after they have worked for six months. This means migrant workers always have their unpaid monies with the companies.

“I was lucky because I got help from a soldier friend whom I used to teach English to. He drove me and my friend all the way from Benghazi to neighboring Egypt where evacuation planes were. When I got to Ghana I had only 500 cedis left on me, but I had left about 7,000 cedis worth of money with my company, and that was very painful,” he added with bitterness.

A lack of job opportunities for young people in Kwame Danso, Ghana has led many to attempt the risky migration to Libya. Credit: Kwaku Botwe/IPS

The Journey

Most migrants from West Africa use the desert as an illegal route to enter Libya, and this leaves them vulnerable to human traffickers. Mohammed says thugs meet them at the border and take them to places which have now been dubbed slave camps. Once at the camps, migrants are held captive, fed just enough to keep them alive, and subjected to various forms of inhuman treatment in a bid to extort money.

Mohammed, who had hardly any money, was ordered to call his family and pressure them for a ransom.

“My mom was crying because she thought they were going to kill me. But I assured her that everything would be okay if the money comes.”

Mohammed says his stepfather coughed up 300 cedis and he was released. But he added that some captives had to pay more, sometimes thousands.

Once out of the slave camp, the next difficulty is gathering enough money to pay to be smuggled to the Libyan capital, Tripoli. Making it to Tripoli is crucial for those who have hopes of reaching Europe because of the proximity the capital offers to Italy.

“I was engaged in very dangerous jobs such as lifting overly heavy concrete. I sneaked back to the ghetto [slave camp] and tipped some of the inmates for a place to sleep,” he recalled.

Mohammed says the journey to Tripoli was a nightmare as migrants were packed “like sardines in the back of a pick-up” covered with a tarpaulin tied down with a rope and driven on a hot, bumpy desert road for many kilometers.

“When we got to Tripoli I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t feel my legs and I thought I had sunstroke,” he said.

When he couldn’t find a decent job in Tripoli, Mohammed left for Benghazi, where he shuffled between jobs with hopes of gathering enough money to pay for the perilous trip on a packed-to-the-brim boat across the Mediterranean Sea. But his hopes of making it to Europe were dashed when the civil war broke out.

The story of migrants being sold at slave camps, first exposed by CNN, has been denied by Libyan authorities who accuse the media of wrongly portraying Libya as a racist country. Asked whether he believes in the slave trade story, Mohammed said he wouldn’t doubt it.

A year after their repatriation in 2011, IOM offered training and other forms of support, including equipment, for some returnees in three districts in the Brong Ahafo region, the region with the highest number of returnees, to help them integrate into their communities.

Anita Jawadurovna Wadud, Project Manager for the Returns, Protection and Direct Assistance to Vulnerable Migrants Unit of IOM, said the UN agency carries out various activities in Brong Ahafo, including awareness raising and sensitization of the risks of irregular migration in communities including in schools, a Migration Information Centre in Sunyani, livelihood projects for returnees and potential migrants, as well as reintegration activities for Ghanaian returnees who return to the region through IOM’s assisted voluntary return and reintegration (AVRR) programmes. IOM has been assisting Ghanaian returnees since 2002.

“Reintegration provides returnees with an opportunity to support their socio-economic reintegration, through counselling, psychosocial and medical support if needed, vocational/skills training and micro-business support,” she explained.

Mac Simpson, a Ghanaian teacher in Libya and expert on migration and human trafficking based in Tripoli, says out of the about 2,000 Ghanaian migrants who have died at sea in the past four years trying to make it to Europe, 1,600 are from the Brong Ahafo region.

Some advocates have used social media to share videos of maltreatment of migrants in Libya with the hope of discouraging hopefuls. But Simpson, who himself embarked on the deadly voyage more than two decades ago and has written three books about the migrant situation in Libya, says such videos have very little impact.

He says youth will continue to take the risk as long as they cannot find sustainable jobs in Ghana and Libya offers some hope.

“To convince someone from the Brong Ahafo Region not to go to Libya, you need to work some magic. My NGO went to the region to talk to some youth who had returned and when we asked what would make them stay, one said give me a taxi. So we got him one and as we talk he’s still in the country working as a taxi driver.”

Mac, who is currently in Ghana to engage in advocacy work, says he’s liaising with the Ministry of Education to adopt one of his books, The Cemetery Without Graves, among schoolchildren as he believes getting the message to people at a younger age can have some impact.

Finding something to do seem to be the factor that has kept Mohammed in Ghana. Even though his district wasn’t among those selected for intervention by IOM, he and other friends who returned to the Kwame Dano area have found their own ways back into society.

“I had good grades after Senior High School so I enrolled in a teacher training college. I’m now employed as a teacher in a junior high school… The pay isn’t too good but we are surviving,” he said, adding that since they came back, “some of us haven’t had any form of support from the government or anybody”.

Mohammed hopes to enter into politics where he believes he could influence policy and perhaps help to address this age-old Ghana-Libya migration canker. Until then, he believes a lot of uninformed youth will be making that treacherous journey in search of a better life.

A group of Rohingya children emerge from a nearby religious school in Kutupalong camp. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

By Naimul Haq
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Dec 5 2017 (IPS)

Mariam Akhtar, 23, is desperately searching for her young daughter two weeks after arriving from Myanmar in Cox’s Bazar, a southeastern coastal district in Bangladesh.

Already traumatized by the extreme violence she and her family suffered in Buthidaung district in Myanmar, Mariam now faces fresh agony."There are agents looking for opportunities around the clock to lure and smuggle out the children." --Sarwar Chowdhury, Ukhia upazila chairman

“With God’s blessings I was able to reach this camp in Kutupalong alive. But where is my safety here when I have a child lost?” asks the mother of three small children.

Faria Islam Jeba*, a mother of four, also expressed fears when this correspondent approached a group of women in Kutupalong camp. It is the biggest of more than 30 refugee camps scattered across a 35 km stretch of land between Teknaf and Ukhia, two of the small towns in southern Cox’s Bazar where Rohingya refugees are still pouring in every day by the thousands from neighbouring Myanmar.

Jeba experienced rapes and beatings in Myanmar. She says her brothers were shot by Burmese security forces. But Bangladesh isn’t the safe haven she’d hoped for.

“I feel so scared, especially at night when it is dark all around. The hilly terrain and the meandering, muddy roads here make it hard to keep watch on my children when they go out.”

Mariam and Jeba are among many young single mothers who say they lost children inside the camps. The disappearances have been documented by the government and the aid agencies working in the crowded camps.

Over 1,000 children, mostly young girls under aged less than 18 years, have gone missing since the influx of refugees reached its height in late August. Many are believed to have been smuggled out to other parts of the country by human traffickers. Others might have been taken abroad.

Ali Hossain, Cox’s Bazar district commissioner who is supervising all activities in the camps under his command, told IPS, “In last three months we have punished 550 such alleged criminals who were caught red-handed while attempting to traffic children from the camps.”

“It is difficult policing [criminal activity] considering the sheer vastness of the camps. Many of the traffickers enter the camps in the guise of volunteer relief workers [and] they get easy access this way.”

To prevent fake relief workers from getting in, the administration recently introduced registration of all humanitarian organizations.

Still, the unaccompanied Rohingya children badly require protection in an organized manner. Only a fraction of the estimated 500,000 children attend religious schools (madrasas) instead of formal schools. Most are very vulnerable to trafficking as they have no guardians.

“What they [children] need is a ‘safe’ shelter, not just a physical bamboo shed shelter to live in. There are agents looking for opportunities around the clock to lure and smuggle out the children. So, basically they need caretakers and a mechanism to monitor their presence,” said Sarwar Chowdhury, Ukhia upazila chairman.

A Rohingya woman at Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh. Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

Rohingya refugees are very poor and have had no formal education. “I don’t know who to talk to about the pain in my abdomen,” says a woman named Rina in a soft, broken voice. She came from a village in Buthidaung.

The most common problems women cited were lack of security, privacy and leadership for the refugees. The overwhelming majority are women who have no organized voice in the camps.

Nilima Begum from Maundaw district in Myanmar says, “While in Myanmar we never had any healthcare. We don’t even know what is a hospital or school, as we were highly restricted from moving around even within our own community.”

Amran Mahzan, Executive Director of MERCY Malaysia, an international aid agency working in the camps since a long time, told IPS, “The most common complaint we get from the traumatized women is malnourishment, followed by pregnancy-related complications.”

“The number of pregnant women is very high, and they have poor knowledge of nutrition or pre or post-natal care. Our doctors are continuously providing advice to women on maternity care and safe delivery, but with language and cultural differences being barriers, the level is compliance remains to be seen.”

There are 18,000 pregnant women waiting to deliver and thousands more who may not yet have been identified and registered for healthcare.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is now at the forefront of addressing some of the challenges of emergency reproductive healthcare.

Dr Sathyanarayanan Doraiswamy, Chief of Health at UNFPA, Bangladesh, told IPS, “Our priority response has been to offer access to emergency obstetric and newborn care services, clinical response services for survivors of sexual violence, provide a basic package of prevention for HIV and sexually transmitted infections, safe blood transfusion and practice of universal precautions in health facilities.”

Megan Denise Smith, gender-based violence (GBV) Operations Officer for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Cox’s Bazar, told IPS, “Community outreach teams share essential information with women and girls regarding available services, whether this be medical, psychosocial or recreational activities to facilitate empowerment.”

She adds, “Mapping out specific areas where women and adolescent girls feel unsafe in talking to them directly will allow the community to then target these areas more effectively and establish a protective presence to prevent further risks.”

Mahmuda, Mental Health Programme Associate of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) told IPS, “The biggest challenge in dealing with the women is the need for stress management which I think should be the priority. It is now a question of survival and psycho-social counseling already given to over 3000 women in the past three months shows the positive impact.”

Mahmuda, a psychiatrist leading a small team in Kutupalong camp, says, “The women are emotionally numb. Atrocities for Rohingy refugees are nothing new, even the recent ones. They have been exposed to such violence for years and so they continue to suffer from such psychological distress.”

The camps are gradually setting up Child-Safe Spaces for children to play and learn, as well as dedicated services for women. Privacy is an issue in the cramped and overcrowded camps.

Separate examining rooms and private consultation spaces where women can relate their health problems to doctors are also in place, though more are needed.

Dignity and safety are key as many of the women are pregnant as a result of rape and cannot speak up for fear of being stigmatized by others. Many international agencies working in the camps are considering recruiting more female health care professionals.

The challenge is colossal, with over million refugees from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, dubbed the ‘fastest growing humanitarian refugee crisis in the world’.

So far, only 34 percent of the 434 million dollars pledged has been disbursed. One in four children is malnourished, and vaccination against communicable diseases and safe water are urgently needed.

*Names have been changed to protect the victims’ identities.

The series of reports from the border areas of Myanmar and Bangladesh are supported by UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC)

Excerpt:

Migrants with tired faces laden with the hardships of the hazardous journey from Central America to the United States rest in a shelter in Mexico, which many reach after being cheated by “coyotes” out of everything they had. Credit: Ximena Natera/ Pie de Página

By Daniela Pastrana
MEXICO CITY, Jun 3 2017 (IPS)

Each year, some three million undocumented immigrants enter the United States, half of them with the help of traffickers, as part of a nearly seven-billion- dollar business, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Although Mexico is still the main source of migrants to the United States, a rise in the flow of migrants from Central America and South America has been seen in the last few decades, and more recently from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa.

Three-quarters of these new migrants cross Mexico and many of them are victims of criminal networks.“When they refer to transnational policies in the U.S., they mean not letting migrants into the country and pursuing the coyotes. But they are not referring to policies to address the problems surrounding the whole phenomenon, and even less to the victims.” -- Ana Lorena Delgadillo

Human trafficking is one of the hidden violations of the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people. But, although the smuggling of migrants is a transnational crime, in the countries involved in this phenomenon there are no transnational policies to address the problem.

“The agreements that exist between countries are aimed at cracking down on people to keep them from crossing borders. But there is not one bilateral or trilateral agreement that really seeks to solve the problem in an integral manner,” Martha Sánchez Soler, coordinator of the Mesoamerican Migrant Movement (MMM), said in an interview with IPS.

Every year, the MMM organises a convoy of Central American mothers searching for their missing children in Mexico, which has prompted an effort to build bridges between countries in the region to trace the missing migrants.

“We have reported ‘coyotes’ (people smugglers) a thousand times and they don’t do anything to them because there is no serious intention to stop the problem. Coyotes are good business for governments,” the activist explained.

Human trafficking and people smuggling are crimes that have come into the spotlight in Latin America, and in multilateral bodies, in recent years.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) says the phenomenon is fuelled by difficult living conditions in less developed countries, the stiffening of migration policies in industrialised countries, and the fact that it was not previously seen as a structural problem, but as a series of isolated events.

The U.N. Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, signed in Palermo, Italy in 2000, was the international community’s response to the rise in human trafficking, considered a modern form of slavery.

The Convention was reinforced by the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children.

Although many people confuse human trafficking and people smuggling and use them as synonymous terms, they are related but involve different activities: the objective of trafficking is the exploitation of a human being,it is considered a form of modern slavery, and victims do not necessarily cross borders.

Migrants travelling across Mexico on their way to the United States replicate the Way of the Cross to symbolise the ordeal experienced by the victims of human trafficking in the region, which generates some seven billion dollars a year in profits. Credit: Ximena Natera/ Pie de Página

Smuggling, on the other hand, is a transnational crime, since it involves the facilitating of the illegal entry of a person to a country for economic benefit; it is often done in dangerous or degrading conditions; the victims give their consent; and it generally ends with the arrival of migrants to their destinations.

However, in Mexico, people smuggling has combined with other forms of crime and many migrants fall victim to trafficking networks for sexual exploitation or forced labour for drug cartels.

According to the UNODC, the smuggling of migrants from Mexico to the U.S. generates nearly seven billion dollars a year in profits, which makes it one of the most lucrative transnational organised crimes, since it is less risky than drug trafficking.

Felipe de la Torre, from the UNODC office in Mexico, said this is a “conservative” figure, in a crime “necessarily linked to corruption, which has proliferated“ up to the highest levels of government and public bodies, not to mention private sectors such as railway companies.

“The routes of migrants began to coincide with those of drug trafficking, making the crossing even more violent…It became a business generating outrageous profits for organised crime, in which many lives are lost and the physical and psychological health of many others is put at risk,” said De la Torre.

Mexican lawyer Ana Lorena Delgadillo, head of the Foundation for Justice and Democratic Rule of Law, told IPS that “the Palermo Convention is the key to these issues; there are more general bilateral agreements, but they focus more on research and on coordination between justice systems.”

She added that: “although regulations are in place, there are no real regional policies establishing measures to ensure a comprehensive approach to this phenomenon.”

“When they refer to transnational policies in the U.S., they mean not letting migrants into the country and pursuing the coyotes. But they are not referring to policies to address the problems surrounding the whole phenomenon, and even less to the victims,” she said.

The particular case of Cuba

An example of this lack of policies has been seen in the case of Cuban migration since 2015. In November that year, the government of Costa Rica dismantled a people smuggling network, which triggered a crisis, with several thousands of migrants stranded in different countries in the region, that closed their borders to the transit of undocumented migrants.

Two Cuban migrants rest in a shelter in Costa Rica, when hundreds of them were stranded on their way from Ecuador to the United States, where many fell victim to human smugglers. Credit: Mónica González/Pie de Página

In Cuba, most of the people cheated by human smugglers suffer the consequences in silence. The most dramatic cases, with tragic human losses, are often depicted in national TV series on crime, based on real life stories. This phenomenon has hit Cuba since migration got trapped in the conflict with the United States, in the 1960s.

Migrant smuggling is punished with harsh sentences that include life imprisonment in aggravated cases. But no clear data exists on the human costs.

“The risks are enormous, because you are at the mercy of the mafias. With them, there is no room for any law or human rights,” a Cuban living in the United States, told IPS. He said smugglers mainly used to come from the U.S. to pick Cubans up on speedboats, as they defected illegally.

In recent years, migrants have left Cuba legally, heading first to South America or Central America on their dangerous journey to the U.S., paying smugglers 7,000 to 13,000 dollars per person and often falling prey to violence, extortion and other crimes at the hands of trafficking networks. The journey of at least 7,700 km takes them across as many as eight national borders.

“One of my best friends paid 4,000 dollars to a man who was supposed to arrange her departure from the country. Her family spent the same amount in the U.S. After a year, she had no choice but to admit that she had been swindled. Since it was an illegal operation, she did not file a complaint,” 40-year-old professional Idalmis Guerrero told IPS.

The woman’s story dates back to before the immigration reform implemented in January 2013, which expanded travel rights for Cuban citizens, revoked the requirements of an exit permit and letters of invitation from hosts abroad – cumbersome procedures that drove up the costs and red tape involved in any trip for personal reasons.

However, obtaining a visa for the United States or other countries is still difficult.

On January 12, 2017, a week before handing over the presidency to Donald Trump, then president Barack Obama terminated the U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, known as the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which basically guaranteed Cuban immigrants residency one year and one day after they set foot on U.S. soil.

He also eliminated the Cuban Medical Parole programme, which enabled Cuban medical professionals stationed in other countries on international missions to defect and obtain visas to the United States.

Although Mexico and Cuba have several agreements for working together against people smuggling, Cubans arrested on their way to the U.S. began to be deported on Jan. 21 after they were denied safe conducts that give foreign nationals 20 days to leave Mexico.

With additional reporting by Patricia Grogg in Havana.

Children from rural areas and disempowered homes are ideal targets for trafficking in India and elsewhere. Credit: Neeta Lal/IPS

By Neeta Lal
NEW DELHI, Jun 20 2016 (IPS)

Sunita Pal, a frail 17-year-old, lies in a tiny bed in the women’s ward of New Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Her face and head swathed in bandages, with only a bruised eye and swollen lips visible, the girl recounts her ordeal to a TV channel propped up by a pillow. She talks of her employers beating her with a stick every day, depriving her of food and threatening to kill her if she dared report her misery to anybody.

“I worked from 6am until midnight. I had to cook, clean, take care of the children and massage the legs of my employers,” Sunita recounts to the journalist, pain writ large on her face. “In exchange, I got only two meals and wasn’t even paid for the six months I worked at the house. When I expressed a desire to leave, I was beaten up.”

Sunita is one of the fortunate few who got rescued from her hell by an anti-slavery activist and is now being rehabilitated at a woman’s home in Delhi. But there are millions of Sunitas across India who continue to toil in Dickensian misery for years without any succour. Trafficked from remote villages to large cities, they are and sold as domestic workers to placement agencies or worse, at brothels. Their crime? Extreme poverty and illiteracy.

The Global Slavery Index released recently by the human rights organisation Walk Free Foundation states that globally, India has the largest population of modern slaves. Over 18 million people are trapped as bonded labourers, forced beggars, sex workers and child soldiers across the country. They constitute 1.4 percent of India’s total population, the fourth highest among 167 countries with the largest proportion of slaves. The survey estimates that 45.8 million people are living in modern slavery globally, of which 58 percent are concentrated in India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Uzbekistan.Between 2011 and 2013, over 10,500 children were registered as missing from Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest tribal states.

Grace Forrest, co-founder of the Australia-based foundation, told an Indian newspaper that all forms of modern slavery continue to exist in India, including inter-generational bonded labour, forced child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced recruitment into non-state armed groups and forced marriage.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), trafficking of minor girls — the second-most prevalent trafficking crime in India – has surged 14 times over the last decade. It increased 65 percent in 2014 alone. Girls and women are the primary targets of immoral trafficking in India, comprising 76 percent of all human trafficking cases nationwide over a decade, reveals NCRB.

As many as 8,099 people were reported to be trafficked across India in 2014. Selling or buying girls for prostitution, importing them from a foreign country are the most common forms of trafficking in India, say experts. Sexual exploitation of women and children for commercial purposes takes place in various forms including brothel-based prostitution, sex-tourism, and pornography.

Last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation unearthed a pan-India human trafficking racket that had transported around 8,000 Indian women to Dubai. Another report about a man who trafficked 5,000 tribal kids from the poor tribal state of Jharkhand also caught the public eye.

Equally disconcerting are thousands of children which go missing from some of India’s hinterlands. Between 2011 and 2013, over 10,500 children were registered as missing from Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest tribal states. They were trafficked into domestic work or other forms of child labour in cities. Overall , an estimated 135,000 children are believed to be trafficked in India every year.

Experts point to the exponentially growing demand for domestic servants in burgeoning Indian cities as the main catalyst for trafficking. A 2013 report by Geneva-based International Labour Organization found that India hosts anywhere from 2.5 million to 90 million domestic workers. Yet, despite being the largest workforce in the country, these workers remain unrecognized and unprotected by law.

This is a lacuna that a national policy in the pipeline hopes to address. Experts say the idea is to give domestic workers the benefits of regulated hours of work with weekly rest, paid annual and sick leave, and maternity benefits as well entitlement of minimum wages under the Minimum Wages Act of 1948.

“Once these workers come under the ambit of law,” explains New Delhi-based human rights lawyer Kirit Patel, “it will be a big deterrent for criminals. But till then, domestic workers remain easy targets for exploitation.”

Despite growing awareness and media sensitization, however, registered human trafficking cases have spiralled up by 38.3 percent over five years from 2,848 in 2009 to 3,940 in 2013 as per NCRB. Worse, the conviction rate for such cases has plummeted 45 percent, from 1,279 in 2009 to 702 in 2013.

Not that human trafficking is a uniquely Indian phenomenon. The menace is the third-largest source of profit for organised crime, after arms and drugs trafficking involving billions of dollars annually worldwide, say surveys. Every year, thousands of children go missing in South Asia, the second-largest and fastest-growing region in the world for human trafficking after East Asia, according to the UN Office for Drugs & Crime.

To address the issue of this modern-day slavery, South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation recently held a conference on child protection in New Delhi. Ministers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Afghanistan and the Maldives agreed to jointly combat child exploitation, share best practices and common, uniform standards to address all forms of sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking.

One of the pioneering strategies adopted at the conference was to set up a toll-free helpline and online platform to report and track missing children. “We need to spread the message to support rescue efforts and rehabilitate victims. With the rapid advance of technology and a fast-changing, globalized economy, new threats to children’s safety are emerging every day,” said India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh at the conference.

Rishi Kant, one of India’s leading anti-trafficking activists, says it all boils down to prioritizing the issue. “For poor Indian states, providing food, shelter and housing assume far greater importance than chasing traffickers. Besides, many people don’t even see trafficking as a crime. They feel it’s an opportunity for impoverished children to migrate to cities, live in rich homes and better their lives!”

Initiatives like anti-trafficking nodal cells — like the one under the Ministry of Home Affairs — can be effective deterrents, say experts. The ministry has also launched a web portal on anti-human trafficking, while the Ministry of Women and Child Development is implementing a programme that focuses on rescue, rehabilitation and repatriation of victims.

But the best antidote to the menace of human trafficking, say experts, is a stringent law. India’s first anti-trafficking law — whose draft was unveiled by the Centre recently — recommends tough action against domestic servant placement agencies who hustle poor children into bonded labour and prostitution. It also suggests the formation of an anti-trafficking fund.

The bill also makes giving hormone shots such as oxytocin to trafficked girls (to accelerate their sexual maturity) and pushing them into prostitution a crime punishable with 10 years in jail and a fine of about 1,500 dollars. Addressing new forms of bondage — such as organised begging rings, forced prostitution and child labour — are also part of the bill’s suggestions.

Once the law is passed, hopefully, girls like Sunita will be able to breathe a little easier.

A group of Cubans wait in a shelter opened by the authorities in the town of La Cruz in the northwestern Costa Rican border province of Guanacaste. Credit: National Risk Prevention and Emergency Response Commission of Costa Rica

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
SAN JOSÉ, Nov 23 2015 (IPS)

Thousands of Cubans heading for the United States have been stranded at the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border since mid-November, waiting for the authorities in Managua to authorise their passage north.Just over 2,500 Cubans are waiting in northern Costa Rica, the majority in temporary shelters opened by the local authorities. After receiving temporary transit permits from the Costa Rican government, the Cubans ran into resistance when they reached Nicaragua, which closed the border and denied them passage.

“We’re desperate to get to the United States because we want a better future for our children and for ourselves,” said Arley Alonso Ferrarez, a Cuban migrant, in a video provided by the Costa Rican government’s National Risk Prevention and Emergency Response Commission.

Alonso and the other Cubans stuck at the Nicaraguan border are seeking refuge under the U.S. Cuban Adjustment Act’s “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which guarantees residency to any Cuban who sets foot on U.S. soil.

The exodus was fuelled once again this year by the fear that the thaw between the Cuban and U.S. governments, which began in December 2014 and has led to the restoration of diplomatic ties, would result in the modification or elimination of the special treatment received by Cuban immigrants to the United States.

Cubans have been making their way to the United States through Central America for several years now, but the phenomenon had gone unnoticed until the Costa Rican government adopted measures in early November to fight the trafficking of persons through this country.

That cut short the flow of undocumented immigrants and revealed the scale of the movement of Cubans from Ecuador to the United States.

“The current crisis was triggered by the dismantling of the (trafficking) ring, which has brought to light the situation which we had already warned about, with regard to the increase in the number of Cuban migrants,” Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel González told IPS.

“I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, not even my worst enemy,” Cuban migrant Ignacio Valdés told the local newspaper La Nación, referring to the dangers faced along the lengthy journey. “We’ve been robbed, we were forced to jump into the sea between Colombia and Panama, some girls were even raped, and the police stole from us.”

After the Nov. 10 arrest of members of the trafficking ring which smuggled migrants through Costa Rican territory, Cubans began to be stranded in groups along the southern border of the country.

That forced the authorities to issue seven-day safe conducts, to regulate their passage to Nicaragua. But that country completely sealed its border on Nov. 15, and blocked the entrance of Cubans when it reopened the border the next day.“The current crisis was triggered by the dismantling of the (trafficking) ring, which has brought to light the situation which we had already warned about, with regard to the increase in the number of Cuban migrants.” - Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel González

The migrants are awaiting the results of a meeting to be held Tuesday Nov. 24 in El Salvador, where the countries of Central America, as well as Mexico, Ecuador and Colombia, will try to hammer out a joint regional response.

The meeting will explore options to create a “humanitarian corridor” to facilitate the passage of Cubans to the United States – which has not been invited to the meeting, while Cuba has failed to confirm its participation, the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry reported.

In recent years, more and more Cubans have been going through Ecuador, which grants them three-month tourist visas and to which they arrive by plane. The route – by land and sea – is much less frequently used and less well-known than the Florida Straits.

It is 5,000 km as the crow flies between Ecuador and the U.S. border, but the routes used by the trafficking gangs are much longer.

In April 2014, the Ecuadorean government eliminated the requisite that Cubans applying for visas present a letter of invitation, thus allowing them to remain in the country for up to three months without any additional requirements.

Once they make it to the South American continent, the migrants go by land across the border between Ecuador and Colombia, before taking a boat along Colombia’s Pacific coast to Panama, where they are smuggled, once more by land, to the Costa Rican border.

“These people are brought in by the mafias, the international people trafficking networks; without a doubt they are risking their lives,” said the foreign minister. “We have received reports of women who have been raped, who have crossed through jungles, and of children who are put in danger. The conditions are deplorable.”

According to Costa Rica’s immigration office, around 13,000 Cubans have travelled through this country since last year.

But they have mainly gone unnoticed, because most of them are smuggled by people traffickers, who charge between 7,000 and 13,000 dollars per person.

Carlos Sandoval, an expert on immigration issues, told IPS that the trafficking rings operate throughout Central America, and are also involved in smuggling migrants from the region who are trying to make it into the United States.

And, he added, while a solution for the stranded Cubans is urgently needed, Central America has long been in debt to its own citizens who try to reach the United States.

“An ironic aspect of this humanitarian corridor initiative is that it’s happening in a region that spits out migrants. Around 300,000 people a year set out from Central America in an attempt to make it to the United States,” said Sandoval, a researcher at the University of Costa Rica’s Social Research Institute.

The Central American migrants heading towards the United States face situations just as complex as what the Cubans are going through.

“The case of the Cubans is just one more instance of what is a day-to-day reality in Central America,” said the Costa Rican expert, who for years has studied Central American migration to the United States, carrying out fieldwork in this region, in Mexico, and in the U.S.

Sandoval said the situation requires a regionwide response – something Costa Rica should have had in mind when it issued the first safe-conduct passes. He argued that it is the region’s governments themselves that create the conditions that allow trafficking networks to operate.

“What makes their business possible? It is possible to the extent that the borders are closed: it is so difficult to get there that without the support of these people (traffickers), it is even more complicated and dangerous,” Sandoval said.

Costa Rica plans to open new shelters in the northern town of Upala, because the ones already set up are full, the minister of human development and social inclusion, Carlos Alvarado, told IPS.

“Many of these people (the Cubans) are professionals, others are skilled workers. They are between the ages of 20 and 45. There are more men than women, some 30 children, and around 10 women who are pregnant,” said Alvarado.

Cubans continue pouring into the country, said the minister. On Friday Nov. 20, for example, some 200 people arrived.

On Saturday Nov. 21, Costa Rica’s authorities reported that there are more than 2,500 Cubans in transit in this country.

“Most of them report that they came using their own funds – they sold all they had and left everything behind to go to the United States,” the minister said.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

By Carolina Jiménez
MEXICO CITY, Aug 21 2015 (IPS)

“Pray for me.”

Those are the last words Eva Nohemi Hernández Murillo told her mother, Elida Yolanda, through a patchy phone line on the evening of Aug. 22, 2010.

The 25-year-old from Honduras was about to get into a van that would, she hoped, take her and 72 other men and women across the Mexican border to the U.S.Mexican authorities are quick to blame powerful criminal gangs for the abuses, choosing to ignore evidence that local security forces, too, often play a role in the abductions and killings.

Eva Nohemi wanted to arrive in what for her was the “promised land” to find a job that would give her enough money to support her parents and three young children back in El Progreso, in Honduras. But she, and all of her travel companions, but one, never made it.

Two days later when Elida sat in her living room to watch the evening news, her worst nightmare was realised.

The image of the lifeless bodies of 72 men and women filled the screen – the victims of what has come to be known as the first massacre of San Fernando. She recognised the clothes on one of them as belonging to her daughter.

“The next day we bought the newspapers to see if we could confirm it was her from the pictures. I felt it was her but was not sure, no one wants to see her daughter dead like that,” Elida said.

The only information about how the massacre unfolded came from the testimony of its sole survivor – who since then has felt terrified for his life after receiving numerous death threats.

Elida didn’t have enough money to travel to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, to demand more information or action from the Mexican embassy there. No one contacted her either.

It was only when a human rights organisation reached out to the family that the investigations started gathering pace.

Another agonising two years passed by before Elida received a call from the Mexican embassy in Tegucigalpa with the confirmation that Eva Nohemi was dead.

“I went into shock. I suspected it was her but you never want to accept that your daughter is dead. Like Eva Nohemi, people are dying on that route all the time. All I want is justice so that this does not happen again,” she said, shaken.

Elida is not alone.

The massacre of San Fernando, which took place five years ago today, provides a glimpse into a shocking crisis that had been lurking for years.

Men, women and children desperate for better opportunities or under death threats by criminal gangs in violent-ridden Central America embark on this dangerous journey with little left to lose but their lives.

Criminal gangs, some of them believed to be working in collusion with local Mexican authorities, attack the migrants along the way. Women are kidnapped and trafficked into sex work. Men are tortured and many of them are kidnapped for ransom.

Few make it to the border without having suffered any human rights abuse; many go missing on the way, never to be found again.

The shocking figures only begin to tell their story.

Six months after the San Fernando massacre, another 193 bodies were found in 47 mass graves in the same town. A year after that, 49 dismembered torsos, believed to be from undocumented migrants, were found in the city of Cadereyta, in the neighbouring state of Nuevo León.

In 2013, a forensic commission made up by the relatives of the migrants, human rights organisations, forensic anthropologists and government officials took on the task of starting to identify the remains from these massacres.

According to official figures from Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM), between 2013 and 2014, abductions of migrants increased tenfold, with 62 complaints registered in 2013 and 682 in 2014.

Mexican authorities are quick to blame powerful criminal gangs for the abuses, choosing to ignore evidence that local security forces, too, often play a role in the abductions and killings.

But Mexico’s disappeared are invisible.

Or at least the authorities look the other way. Meanwhile the stories of death and suffering continue to pile up.

A few days after the San Fernando massacre, then Mexican President Felipe Calderón promised to implement a coordinated plan to end kidnappings and killings of migrants.

Five years on, there’s little to show for this.

Mexico’s current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, chose a security strategy over a human rights solution to his country’s migrant crisis.

In a recent visit to Washington, he was quick to congratulate President Barack Obama’s plan to protect millions of undocumented migrants living in the U.S. from deportation, describing it as an “act of justice”. At the same time, he has done remarkably little to tackle the abuses against migrants occurring in his own country.

There are no magic formulas to resolve this complex tangle of crime, drugs, violence and collusion, but there’s certainly much more than the Mexican authorities can and must do to end it.

Committing more and better resources to undertake effective investigations into these massacres and providing protection to the thousands of migrants crossing the country are two measures that cannot be delayed any longer.

Doing so will send a strong message that Mexican authorities truly do want justice for migrants. We already know the macabre consequences of not doing enough.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

A visitor looking at a panel at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool, England. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS

By A. D. McKenzie
LIVERPOOL, England, Jul 21 2015 (IPS)

An exhibition on modern-day slavery at the International Slavery Museum in this northern English town is just one example of a museum choosing to focus on human rights, and being “upfront” about it.

“Social justice just doesn’t happen by itself; it’s about activism and people willing to take risks,” says Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, which includes the city’s International Slavery Museum (ISM).

The institution looks at aspects of both historical and contemporary slavery, while being an “international hub for resources on human rights issues”.

It is a member of the Liverpool-based Social Justice Alliance for Museums (SJAM), formed in 2013 and now comprising more than 80 museums worldwide, and it coordinated the founding of the Federation of International Human Rights Museums (FIHRM) in 2010.

Dr David Fleming, director of National Museums Liverpool, which includes the city’s International Slavery Museum. Credit: National Museums Liverpool

The aim of FIHRM is to encourage museums which “engage with sensitive and controversial human rights themes” to work together and share “new thinking and initiatives in a supportive environment”. Both organisations reflect the way that museums are changing, said Fleming.

“Museums are not dispassionate agents,” he told IPS. “They have a role in safeguarding memory. We have to look at the role of museums and see how they can transform lives.”

The International Slavery Museum’s current exhibition, titled “Broken Lives” and running until April 2016, focuses on the victims of global modern-day slavery – half of whom are said to be in India, and most of whom are Dalits, or people formerly known as “untouchables”.

The display “provides a window into the experiences of Dalits and others who are being exploited and abused through modern slavery in India”, say the curators.

“Dalits still experience marginalisation and prejudice, live in extreme poverty and are vulnerable to human trafficking and bonded labour,” they add.

Presented in partnership with the Dalit Freedom Network, the exhibition uses photographs, film, personal testimony and other means to show “stories of hardship” that include sexual servitude and child bondage. It also profiles the activists working to mend “broken lives”.“Museums [in Liverpool, Nantes, Guadeloupe and Bordeaux ] hope that they can play a role in global citizenship, educating the public and encouraging visitors to leave with a different mind-set – about respect for human rights, social justice, diversity, equality, and sustainability”

The display occupies a temporary exposition space at the museum, which has a permanent section devoted to the atrocities of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the legacy of racism.

Along with the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in the French city of Nantes and the recently opened Mémorial ACTe in Guadeloupe, the Liverpool museum is one of too few national institutions focused on raising awareness about slavery, observers say.

But it has provided a “vital source of inspiration” to permanent exhibitions on the slave trade in places such as Bordeaux, southwest France, according to the city’s mayor Alain Juppé. Here, the Musée d’Aquitaine hosts a comprehensive division called ‘Bordeaux, Trans-Atlantic Trading and Slavery’ – with detailed, unequivocal information.

These museums hope that they can play a role in global citizenship, educating the public and encouraging visitors to leave with a different mind-set – about respect for human rights, social justice, diversity, equality, and sustainability.

“We try to overtly encourage the public to get involved in the fight for human rights,” Fleming told IPS in an interview. “We’ve often said at the Slavery Museum that we want people to go away fired up with the desire to fight racism.

“You can’t dictate to people what they’re going to think or how they’re going to respond and react,” he continued. “But you can create an atmosphere, and the atmosphere at the Slavery Museum is clearly anti-racist. We hope people will leave thinking: I didn’t know all those terrible things had happened and I’m leaving converted.”

Despite Liverpool’s undeniable history as a major slaving port in the 18th century, not everyone will be affected in the same way, however. There have been swastikas painted on the walls of the museum in the past, as bigots reject the institution’s aims.

“Some people come full of knowledge and full of attitude already, and I don’t imagine that we affect these people. But we’re looking for people in the middle, who might not have thought about this,” Fleming said.

A poster sign for the ‘Broken Lives’ exhibition under way at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS

He described a visit to the museum by a group of English schoolchildren who initially did not comprehend photographs depicting African youngsters whose hands had been cut off by colonialists.

When they were given explanations about the images, the schoolchildren “switched on to the idea that people can behave abominably, based on nothing but ethnicity,” he said.

Fleming visits social justice exhibitions around the world and gives information about the museum’s work, he said. As a keynote speaker, he recently delivered an address about the role of museums at a conference in Liverpool titled ‘Mobilising Memory: Creating African Atlantic Identities’.

The meeting – organised by the Collegium for African American Research (CAAR) and a new UK-based body called the Institute for Black Atlantic Research – took place at Liverpool Hope University at the end of June.

It began a few days after a white gunman killed nine people inside the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in the U.S. state of South Carolina.

The murders, among numerous incidents of brutality against African Americans over the past year, sparked a sense of urgency at the conference as well as heightened the discussion about activism – and especially the part that writers, artists and scholars play in preserving and “activating” memory in the struggle for social justice and human rights.

“Artists, and by extension museums, have what some people have called a ‘burden of representation’, and they have to deal with that,” said James Smalls, a professor of art history and museum studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).

“Many times, artists automatically are expected to speak on behalf of their ethnic group or community, and some have chosen to embrace that while others try to be exempt,” he added.

Claire Garcia, a professor at Colorado College, said that for a number of academics “there is no necessary link between scholarship and activism” in what are considered scholarly fields.

Such thinkers make the point that scholarship should be “theoretical” and “universal,” and not political or focused on “the specific plights of one group,” she said. However, this standpoint – “when it is disconnected from the embattled humanity” of some ethnic groups – can create further problems.

The concept of museums standing for “social justice” is controversial as well because the issue is seen differently in various parts of the world. The line between “objectifying and educating” also gives cause for debate.

Fleming said that National Museums Liverpool, for example, would not have put on the contentious show “Exhibit B” – which featured live Black performers in a “human zoo” installation; the work was apparently aimed at condemning racism and slavery but instead drew protests in London, Paris and other cities in 2014.

“Personally I loathe all that stuff, so my vote would be ‘no’ to anything similar,” Fleming told IPS. “And that’s not because it’s controversial and difficult but because it’s degrading and humiliating. There are all sorts of issues with it, and I’ve thought about that quite a lot.”

He and other scholars say that they are deeply conscious of who is doing the “story-telling” of history, and this is an issue that also affects museums.

Several participants at the CAAR conference criticised certain displays at the International Slavery Museum, wondering about the intended audience, and who had selected the exhibits, for instance.

A section that showed famous individuals of African descent seemed superficial in its glossy presentation of people such as American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey and well-known athletes and entertainers.

Fleming said that museums often face disapproval for both going too far and not going “far enough”. But taking a disinterested stand does not seem to be the answer, because “the world is full of ‘faux-neutral’ museums”, he said.

The most relevant and interesting museums can be those that have a “moral compass”, but they need help as they can “do very little by themselves,” Fleming told IPS. The institutions that he directs often work with non-governmental organisations that bring their own expertise and point of view to the exhibitions, he explained.

Apart from slavery, individual museums around the world have focused on the Holocaust, on apartheid, on genocide in countries such as Cambodia, and on the atrocities committed during dictatorships in regions such as Latin America.

“Some countries don’t want museums to change,” said Fleming. “But in Liverpool, we’re not just there for tourism.”

Edited by Phil Harris

The writer can be followed on Twitter: @mckenzie_ale   

The lack of jobs after graduation frequently pushes Cameroonian girls into searching for work opportunities, sometimes overseas and sometimes with horrific consequences. Credit: Ngala Killian Chimtom/IPS

By Ngala Killian Chimtom
YAOUNDE, Jul 15 2015 (IPS)

Her lips are quavering her hands trembling. Susan (not her real name) struggles to suppress stubborn tears, but the outburst comes, spontaneously, and the tears stream down her cheeks as she sobs profusely.

The story of this 28-year-old’s servitude in Kuwait is mind-boggling. Between her sobs, she tells IPS how she left Cameroon two years ago in search of a job in Kuwait.

“I saw job opportunities advertised on billboards in town. The posters announced jobs such as nurses and housemaids in Kuwait. As a nurse and without a job in Cameroon, I decided to take the chance.”"We were herded off to a small room. There were many other girls there: Ghanaians, Nigerians and Tunisians … [then] bidders came and we were sold off like property" – Susan, a young Cameroonian women who escaped from slavery in Kuwait

With the help of an agent whose contact details she found on the billboard, Susan found herself on a plane, bound for Kuwait.

She was excited at the prospect of earning up to 250,000 CFA francs (420 dollars) a month. That is what the agent had told her, and it was a mouth-watering sum compared with the roughly 75 dollars she would have been earning in Cameroon, if she had a job.

“We work in liaison with companies in the Middle East, so that when these ladies go, they don’t start looking for jobs,” Ernest Kongnyuy, an agent in Yaounde told IPS.

But the story changed dramatically when Susan, along with 46 other Cameroonian girls, arrived in Kuwait on Nov. 8, 2013.

“We were herded off to a small room. There were many other girls there: Ghanaians, Nigerians and Tunisians,” then “bidders came and we were sold off like property.”

Susan was taken away by an Egyptian man. “I think I got a taste of hell in his house,” she says, tears streaming down her cheeks.

She would begin work at five in the morning and go to bed after midnight, very often sleeping without having eaten.

Very frequently, she tells IPS, the man tried to rape her but when she threatened to report the case to the police, she met with a wry response from her tormentor. “He told me he would pay the police to rape me and then kill me, and the case wouldn’t go anywhere.”

Cut off from all communication with the outside world, Susan says that she found solace only in God. “I prayed … I cried out to God for help,” she recalls.

Susan’s is not an isolated case. Brenda, another Cameroonian lucky enough to escape, has a similar story. She had to wash the pets of her master, which included cats and snakes.

“I was sharing the same toilet with cats … I called them my brothers, because they were the only “persons” with whom I conversed.”

Pushed to the limits, both girls told their employers that they were not ready to work any longer. Brenda says that when she insisted, she was thrown out of the house.

“At that time I was frail, I was actually dying and I didn’t know where to go.” After trekking for two days, she found the Central African Republic’s embassy and slept for two days in front of it before she was rescued.

Susan was locked in the boot of a car and taken to the agent who had brought her from the airport.

“Events moved so fast and I found myself spending one week in immigration prison and an additional three days in deportation prison,” she says.

When both girls were finally put on a flight bound for Cameroon, all their property had been seized, except for their passports and the clothes they were wearing.

The scale of the problem is troubling. According to the 2013 Walk Free Global Index of Slavery, about three-quarters of a million people are enslaved in the Middle East and North Africa.

The report indicates that for the past seven years, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have been ranked as Tier 3 countries for human trafficking and labour abuses. Tier 3 countries are those whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards in human trafficking and are not making significant efforts to do so.

Apart from Africa, people from India, Nepal, Eritrea, Uzbekistan, etc. … “migrate voluntarily for domestic work, convinced of the employment agencies’ promises of lucrative jobs,” said the report.

“Upon entering the country, they find themselves deceived and enslaved – within the bounds of a legal sponsorship system.”

Susan and Brenda are now back home, but they are suffering from the trauma of their horrible experience in Kuwait.

The Trauma Centre for Victims of Human Trafficking in Cameroon has been working to bring relief to the women. “We try to make them feel at home,” says Beatrice Titanji, National Vice-President of the Centre.

“They have been exposed to bad treatment. They have been called animals. They have been told they stink, and when they enter the car or a room, a spray is used to take away the supposed odour … I just can’t fathom seeing my child treated like that,” she told IPS.

She called on the government to investigate and prosecute the agents, create jobs and mount guard at airports to discourage Cameroonians from going to look for jobs in the Middle East.

Edited by Phil Harris   

Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "The magnitude of the problems we face is such that it is sometimes hard to imagine how any effort can be enough to confront them. But to quote Nelson Mandela, 'It always seems impossible until it is done'. We must keep working together, until it is done" – Yury Fedotov. Credit: Courtesy of UNODC

By Yury Fedotov
VIENNA, May 27 2015 (IPS)

With terrorism, migrant smuggling and trafficking in cultural property some of the world’s most daunting challenges, “the magnitude of the problems we face is such that it is sometimes hard to imagine how any effort can be enough to confront them. But to quote Nelson Mandela, ‘It always seems impossible until it is done’. We must keep working together, until it is done.”

The words are those of U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Executive Director Yury Fedotov, who was speaking at the closing of the 24th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (Crime Commission) held in the Austrian capital from May 18-22.

Earlier this month, IPS Editor-in-Chief Ramesh Jaura interviewed Fedotov on how the challenges facing the United Nations’ drugs and crime agency translate into challenges on the sustainable development front.“The share of citizens experiencing bribery at least once in a year is over 50 percent in some low-income countries. Many detected human trafficking movements are directed from poor areas to more affluent ones. Research also suggests that weak rule of law is connected to lower levels of economic development” – UNODC Executive Director Yury Fedotov

Q. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), established in 1997, understands itself as “a global leader in the fight against illicit drugs and international crime”. At the same time, you have taken up the cudgels on behalf of sustainable development. What role does the UNODC envisage for itself in achieving sustainable development goals to be agreed at the U.N. summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda in September?

A. Crime steals from countries, families and communities and hampers development while exacerbating inequality and violence, especially in vulnerable countries. Trafficking in diamonds and precious metals, for instance, diverts resources from countries that desperately need the income.

The share of citizens experiencing bribery at least once in a year is over 50 percent in some low-income countries. Many detected human trafficking movements are directed from poor areas to more affluent ones. Research also suggests that weak rule of law is connected to lower levels of economic development. These are just some of the many challenges that the international community faces around the world that are related to crime.

UNODC’s broad mandate includes stopping human traffickers and migrant smugglers, as well as tackling illicit drugs. It encompasses promoting health and alternative livelihoods and involves battling corruption, illicit financial flows, money laundering and terrorist financing. Our work confronts emerging and re-emerging crimes, including wildlife and forest crime, and cybercrime, among others, all of which hinder sustainable development.

Currently the United Nations is making the transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In Goal 16, the Open Working Group, responsible for identifying the development goals stressed the need to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, and to provide access to justice for all, as well as building effective, accountable and inclusive institutions. Justice is also one of the six essential elements identified by the Secretary-General in his own Synthesis Report on this subject.

Goal 3, which focuses on “ensuring healthy lives”, underlines the importance of strengthening prevention and treatment of substance abuse. These goals – justice and health – go to the very heart of UNODC’s mission. I am hopeful that when the U.N. Heads of State Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2015 takes place these goals will remain.

Q. UNODC organised its Thirteenth Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice from Apr. 12 to 19 in Doha, Qatar. The 13-page Doha Declaration contains recommendations on how the rule of law can protect and promote sustainable development. Is that the reason that you described Doha as a “point of departure”?

A. The Doha Declaration was passed by acclamation at the 13th Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, and contains crucial recommendations on how the rule of law can protect and promote sustainable development. The declaration is driven by the principle that these issues are mutually reinforcing and that crime prevention and criminal justice should be integrated into the wider U.N. system.

At the 24th Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (May 18-22), there were nine resolutions before the Commission and they pave the way for the Doha Declaration to go before the U.N. General Assembly and ECOSOC for approval. The other resolutions, for instance on cultural property and standard rules on the treatment of prisoners, seek to implement the principles of the Doha Declaration.

It is for this reason that I described the 13th Crime Congress in Doha as a significant “point of departure”. Doha is the first, but not the last step in the process of implementing the Declaration and ensuring that we turn fine words into spirited and dedicated action in the areas of crime prevention and criminal justice – action that can benefit the millions of victims of crime, illicit drugs, corruption and terrorism.

If we do this, we have an opportunity to energise the 60-year legacy of Crime Congresses and give it the power to shape how we tackle crime and promote development for many years to come. Indeed, I see a strong, visible thread between the recent Crime Congress, September’s UN Summit on Sustainable Development and the 14^th Crime Congress in Japan in five years’ time.

Q. The Doha Declaration also pleads for integrating crime prevention and criminal justice into the wider United Nations agenda. This suggestion comes at a point in time when the United Nations is turning 70. Are there some issues which the United Nations has ignored until now or is there a range of issues that have emerged over previous decades?

A. Member States are increasingly affected by organised crime, corruption, violence and terrorism. These challenges undercut good governance and the rule of law, threatening security, development and people’s lives.

Sustainable development can be safeguarded through fair, human and effective crime prevention and criminal justice systems as a central component of the rule of law. As stated by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “There is no peace without development; there is no development without peace; and there is no lasting peace and sustainable development without respect for human rights.”  We need to break down the walls between these activities and integrate the various approaches.

UNODC is well placed to assist. We work closely with regional entities, partner countries, multilateral and bilateral bodies, civil society, academia and the private sector to support the work on development. We can also offer our support at the global, regional, and local levels, through our headquarters and network of field offices.

Q. Do you find willingness on the part of all countries around the world to agree on national, regional and international legal instruments, to combat all forms of crime, and their willingness to pull on the same string when it comes to implementation?

A. Our work is founded on the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and its three protocols, the Convention against Corruption, international drug control conventions, universal legal instruments against terrorism and U.N. standards and norms on crime prevention and criminal justice.

Almost all of these international instruments have been universally ratified by the international community. Why? Because countries recognise that crime today is too big, too powerful, too profitable for any one country to handle alone. Countries recognise that, today, crime not only crosses country borders, but regional borders. It is a global problem that warrants comprehensive, integrated global solutions.

The UNODC approach to this unique challenge is threefold. First, we are building political commitment among Member States. Second, we deliver our activities through our integrated regional programmes across the world. Third, we are working with partners, both within and outside the United Nations, to ensure that our delivery is strongly connected to other activities at the field level.

In support of this action, and to give just one example, UNODC is networking the networks. Today’s criminals have widespread networks and vast resources; if we are to successfully confront them, we need to ensure greater cross-border cooperation, information sharing and tracking of criminal proceeds.  The initiative is part of an interregional drug control approach developed by UNODC to stem illicit drug trafficking from Afghanistan and focuses on promoting closer cooperation between existing law enforcement coordination centres and platforms.

Q. UNODC has assigned itself a wide range of tasks. Which are your priorities in the biennium ending this year, during which you have 760.1 million dollars at your disposal?

A. I would mention two matters that are of international importance. First, smuggling of migrants not just in the Mediterranean or the Andaman seas, but also elsewhere. We are witnessing unprecedented movements of people across the globe, the largest since the Second World War. People are leaving because of conflict, insecurity and the desire for a better life. They are falling into the arms of unscrupulous smugglers and many of them are dying, while trying to make the dangerous journey across deserts and seas.

Second, the nexus of transnational organised crime and terrorism is a major threat to global peace and security, and has been recognised as such in recent Security Council resolutions. Every extremist and terrorist group requires sustainable funding. The most reliable, and sometimes the only, means of achieving this is through illicit funds gained from transnational organised crime, including cybercrime, drug trafficking, people smuggling and many other crimes.

Information on the magnitude and exact nature of such relationships remains incomplete, and more research is needed. Based on data and analysis, however, for some regions, we can follow the funding in support of violent extremism and terrorism. In Afghanistan, for example, the Taliban could be receiving as much as 200 million dollars annually as a tax on the drug lords.

Edited by Phil Harris    

Excerpt:

Speaking at the U.N. Security Council, Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, called on the international community to take urgent steps to end the Mediterranean crisis and dismantle the human smuggling rings that facilitate it.

”The EU is united and we will work, but we cannot work alone. We need to share and act together, as it’s a EU responsibility and a global responsibility,” said Mogherini

In 2014, 3,300 migrants died while fleeing their countries of origin to enter Europe. Three people out of four perished in the Mediterranean Sea, and 2015 looks set to be even worse, added Mogherini.

According to the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) about 60,000 men, women and children have crossed the Mediterranean this year, and 1,800 of them have tragically died during the journey.

“Saving lives and preventing the loss of lives at sea is a top responsibility that we all share, not only as Europeans but globally,” Mogherini said at the Council briefing, adding that an exceptional situation requires an immediate strategy to solve the crisis.

The Mediterranean problem is a structural problem rooted in poverty, increasing inequality, conflicts and human rights violations in African and Middle Eastern countries and beyond, including the situation in Syria, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, said the European High Representative.

Also speaking at the Council was Antonio Tete, Permanent Representative Observer of the African Union to the U.N., who underlined that smuggling of migrants has emerged due to several factors that lead people in many African countries to escape from abject poverty, climate change, water scarcity, insufficient progress in employment and rising inequality.

Since April, the EU has been collaborating with the African Union in countries such as Tunisia, Niger, Mali, Sudan, but also with Egypt given the situation in Syria and Iraq, in order to strengthen cooperation and dialogue on a regional and international level.

“This humanitarian emergency is also a security crisis, since smuggling networks are linked to finance and terrorist activities, which contributes to instability in a region that is already unstable enough,” Mogherini said.

If the international community fails to frame its response to the crisis, it will be a “moral failure,” said Peter Sutherland, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for International Migration.

On May 13, the European Commission will present a new agenda on migration, drafted by member countries in April.

The EU is also calling for a U.N. resolution in order to disrupt smugglers’ networks and business by destroying vessels before their use, in accordance with international law.

On May 18, EU member states will discuss the possibility of launching a naval operation, in the framework of the EU common security and defence policy, Mogherini said.

“But we want to work with the U.N. Security Council and with the UNHCR […] we need a (global) partnership if we want to end this tragedy,” she said.

A military operation in the Mediterranean was rejected by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in his last visit to Italy, who called it “potentially dangerous for migrants and local fishermen.”

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Dead addax (white antelope) hunted by soldiers in Chad – “We should not underestimate the seriousness of wildlife crime”. Credit: John Newby/SCF

By Bradnee Chambers
BONN, Mar 1 2015 (IPS)

It is no exaggeration to say that we are facing a “wildlife crisis”, and it is a crisis exacerbated by human activities, not least criminal ones.

Whatever our definition of wildlife crime, it is big business. In terms of annual turn-over it is up there narcotics, arms and human trafficking – and the proceeds run into billions of dollars each year, helping to finance criminal gangs and rebel organisations waging civil wars.“Whatever our definition of wildlife crime, it is big business. In terms of annual turn-over it is up there with narcotics, arms and human trafficking – and the proceeds run into billions of dollars each year”

With seven billion people on the planet, it is tempting to shrug one’s shoulders and ask “What difference can any one individual make?”  Such an attitude means that we are in danger of repeating the “tragedy of the commons” – everyone making seemingly rational decisions in their own immediate interests – but this is a short-sighted approach that undermines the common good and ultimately sows the seeds of its own downfall.

With seven billion people on the planet, it is also tempting to say that people’s need for food, shelter and well-being should take precedence over nature conservation, but the two are not necessarily irreconcilable.  In fact far from it – the two often go hand in hand and are totally compatible – non-consumptive use of wildlife, such as whale-watching and safaris, provide sustainable livelihoods for thousands of people.

Extinction has been an ever-present phenomenon, with a few species losing their specialised niche or being edged out to a more aggressive competitor or, in the case of dinosaurs, being wiped out by a meteorite strike.

The number of species going extinct is increasing fast, at a rate that cannot be attributed to natural causes and it is clear that there is a human foot pressing down heavily on the accelerator pedal.

South Africa reports record numbers of rhinos killed for their horn; demand for ivory is pushing the elephant to the brink; tiger numbers might have risen in India of late but the wild population and the range occupied by the cats are a fraction of what they were at the beginning of the twentieth century.

And we are not just losing vital pieces in the elaborate jigsaw puzzle of ecosystems; we are losing elements of our natural heritage that contribute to human culture and society, and the lifeblood of sustainable activities that create employment in the tourism sector, generating foreign exchange and significant tax revenues.

Wildlife crime is not an abstract. It affects us all and there is more that individuals can do to make a difference than they perhaps imagine.  Understanding the consequences of killing the animals and highlighting the connection between the increased poaching and organised criminal gangs and terrorists have been extremely helpful in strengthening  political messages and in persuading  the public to demand that more be done.

The gangs care little about the fate of the animals – either the individuals they kill or the survival of the species.  They think nothing of shooting the rangers who stand in their way.  They do care about their profits and high demand for ivory in East Asian markets has sent the price through the roof – not that the poacher in the field or the craftsman in the backstreet workshop receive much of a share.

If demand evaporates, the price will fall and killing elephants for their ivory will no longer be a viable business. The gangs will have to find some other source of income, but they would have to do this soon anyway, as current levels of poaching mean that there will not be any elephants left in 30 years.

The maxim “get them while they are young” applies to many things, not least the environment and junior members of the household often influence the family’s behaviour with regard to recycling, saving energy and water, food purchases and a range of other “green issues”. So raising awareness among the younger generation of the need to tackle wildlife crime is crucial.

The fight against wildlife crime has to be conducted on several fronts.  It does register on governments’ radar and pressure from civil society can help keep it high on the agenda.  The public has a vital role to play in keeping pressure on governments, either individually or through local pressure groups and NGOs. People can also modify their own behaviour by minimising their footprint on the planet.

We should not underestimate the seriousness of wildlife crime, but nor should we dismiss the potential impact of the actions of individuals as consumers, customers or voters.

Edited by Phil Harris  

Excerpt:

By Yury Fedotov
VIENNA, Oct 17 2014 (IPS)

Oct. 18 is the EU’s Anti-Trafficking Day, as well as the United Kingdom’s Anti-Slavery Day. These events offer a good opportunity to talk about human trafficking within Europe’s borders, but we should not forget that there are victims and survivors all over the world.

People like Grace, not her real name, who grew up in a large family in Western Nigeria. On leaving high school her uncle lured Grace to Lagos with false promises that her education would continue. But instead of libraries and lessons, this young Nigerian girl was forced to wear suggestive clothing and work long hours in her uncle’s beer parlour. She was pressured into sleeping with any customer willing to pay. Her aunt kept the money.

Courtesy of UNODC

Those who are trafficked, like Grace, are often destitute, alone and afraid. In the face of exploitation and constant abuse it is difficult to summon the courage to flee. Fortunately, she had access to a radio and overheard a show on human trafficking.

One of the interviewees, a staff member for the African Centre for Advocacy and Human Development, encouraged anyone needing help to contact the centre. Grace realised there might be a way out.

Grace approached the centre after running away from her aunt and uncle. She was given a medical examination, as well as a place to sleep and counselling. The centre later sponsored her training as a seamstress, and later, with support, she was able to open a shop to sell her clothes. Grace had successfully taken the long journey from victim to human trafficking survivor.

Although Grace’s cruel experiences are individual to her, they are sadly not unique. In its publication, Hear Their Story, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) highlights numerous stories of children and young people forced to sell themselves, and their labour.

UNODC’s human trafficking report found that 136 different nationalities detected in 118 countries between 2007 and 2010, making this a truly global crime.

Around 27 per cent of those trafficked are children forced into numerous sordid occupations, including petty crime, begging and the sex trade. 55-60 per cent of individuals trafficked globally are women. If the figure for women is added to those for young girls, it becomes 75 per cent.

The majority of these women are coerced into the sex trade; many others find themselves working as domestic servants or forced labour. There is also a commonly held myth that men are not trafficked. This is untrue. Men are also exploited for forced labour and can suffer extreme forms of abuse.

To counter this crime that shreds both dignity and human rights, there is a need to work constantly at the grassroots level. We have to be present where the traffickers are committing their gross crimes, and where victims can be helped to make the transition to a new life.

Countries also need to ratify and adopt the Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime and its protocol on human trafficking. The Convention creates a legal framework for mutual legal assistance and other means of tackling organised crime. But what is really needed is comprehensive data, meaning better reporting from countries, and proper funding.

In 2011, the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for human trafficking managed by UNODC, and which has a special emphasis on children, provided grants to 11 organisations working at the ground level. Thanks to their work, children and young adults, such as Grace, have been supported. But more funds are needed to provide legal support and advice, treatment for physical abuse, safe houses, additional life skills, as well as schooling and training.

Grace’s life changed when she heard a radio story that helped her become a survivor. On the EU’s Anti-Trafficking Day and the UK’s Anti-Slavery Day, we have to ensure that other victims find their voices, and when they escape or are freed, we are waiting to offer much needed protection.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

Excerpt:

NGOs and government data suggests that a child goes missing every eight minutes in India. Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India , Sep 4 2014 (IPS)

In a country where well over half the population lives on less than two dollars a day, it takes a lot to shock people. The sight of desperate families traveling in search of money and food, whole communities defecating in the open, old women performing back-breaking labour, all this is simply part of life in India, home to 1.2 billion people.

But amidst this rampant destitution, some things still raise red flags, or summon collective cries of fury. Child trafficking is one such issue, and it is earning front-page headlines in states where thousands of children are believed to be victims of the illicit trade.

The arrest on Jun. 5 of Shakeel Ahamed, a 40-year-old migrant labourer, by police in the southern state of Kerala, created a national outcry, and reawakened fears of a complex and deep-rooted child trafficking network around the country.

Ahamed’s operation alone was thought to involve over 580 children being illegally moved into Muslim orphanages throughout the state.

“Many families are unable to afford the basic necessities of life, which forces parents to sell their children. Some children are abandoned by families who can’t take care of them. Some run away to escape abuse or unhappy homes. Gangsters and middlemen approach these vulnerable children." -- Justice J B Koshy, chairperson of the Kerala Human Rights Commission
Experts tell IPS that children are also routinely trafficked to and from states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), child trafficking is rampant in underdeveloped villages, where “victims are lured or abducted from their homes and subsequently forced to work against their wish through various means in various establishments, indulge in prostitution or subjected to various types of indignitiesand even killed or incapacitated for the purposes of begging, and trade in human organs.”

Available records show a total of 3,554 crimes related to human trafficking in 2012, compared to 3,517 the previous year. Some 2,848 and 3,400 cases were reported in 2009 and 2010 respectively, as well as 3,029 cases in 2008.

In 2012, former State Home Affairs Minister Jitendra Singh told the upper house of parliament that almost 60,000 children were reported as “missing” in 2011. “Of those,” he added, “more than 22,000 are yet to be located.”

It is not clear how many of these “missing” children are victims of traffickers; a dearth of national data means that experts and advocates are often left guessing at the root causes of the problem.

NGOs and government agencies often cite contradictory figures, but both are agreed that a child goes missing roughly every eight minutes in the country.

Human rights watchdogs say there are many contributing factors to child trafficking in India, including economic deprivation. Indeed, the 2013 Global Hunger Index ranked India 63^rd out of 78 countries, adding that 21.3 percent of the population went hungry in 2013. According to the World Bank, 68.3 percent of Indians live on less than two dollars a day.

“Socio-economic backwardness is a key factor in child trafficking,” Justice J B Koshy, former chief justice of the Patna High Court and chairperson of the Kerala Human Rights Commission, told IPS, adding that a political-mafia nexus also fueled the practice in remote parts of the country.

“Many families are unable to afford the basic necessities of life, which forces parents to sell their children,” Koshy stated. “Some children are abandoned by families who can’t take care of them. Some run away to escape abuse or unhappy homes. The gangsters and middlemen approach these vulnerable children. In some cases, good-looking girls are taken away by force.”

An action research study conducted in 2005 by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) found that a majority of trafficking victims belonged to socially deprived sections of society.

It is estimated that half of the children trafficked within India are between the ages of 11 and 14.

Some 32.3 percent of trafficked girls suffer from diseases such as HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and other gynaecological problems, according to a 2006 report by ECPAT International.

This is likely due to the fact that most girls are trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation.

A government-commissioned study conducted in 2003, the last time comprehensive data was gathered, estimated that the number of sex workers increased from two million in 1997 to three million in 2003-04, representing a 50-percent rise.

Many of these sex workers are thought to be girls between the ages of 12 and 15.

Sreelekha Nair, a researcher who was worked with the New Delhi-based Centre for Women’s Studies, added that parents coming from poor socio-economic conditions in remote villages sometimes readily hand over their children to middlemen.

Some parents have been found to “sell their children for amounts that are shockingly worthless,” she told IPS, in some cases for as little as 2,000 rupees (about 33 dollars), adding, “law and order agencies cannot often intervene in the private matters of a family.”

Rajnath Singh, home minister of India, told a group of New Delhi-based activists headed by Annie Raja, general secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women, that a central agency would conduct a probe into the mass trafficking of children from villages in the Gumla district of the eastern state of Jharkhand over the past several years.

The group had brought it to the attention of the minister that thousands of girls were going missing from interior villages in the district every year, while their parents claimed ignorance as to their whereabouts.

Raja told reporters in New Delhi this past Julythat developmental schemes launched by individual states and the central government often fail to reach remote villages, leaving the countryside open to agents attempting to “sneak teenage girls out of villages.”

Experts point out that implementation of the 1986 Immoral Traffic Prevention Act remains weak. Many believe that since the act only refers to trafficking for the purpose of prostitution, it does not provide comprehensive protection for children, nor does it provide a clear definition of the term ‘trafficking’.

Dr. P M Nair, project coordinator of the anti-human trafficking unit of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in New Delhi and former director general of police, said that investigations should focus on recruiters, traffickers and all those who are part of organised crime.

The ‘scene of crime’ in a trafficking case, he said, should not be confined to the place of exploitationbut should also cover places of transit and recruitment.

“Victims of trafficking should never be prosecuted or stigmatised,” he told IPS. “They should be extended all care and attention from the human rights perspective. There is a need for the mandatory involvement of government agencies in the post-rescue process so that appropriate rehabilitation measures are ensured” as quickly as possible, he added.

NGOs like Child Line India Foundation help provide access to legal, medical and counseling services to all trafficked victims in order to restore confidence and self-esteem, but the country lacks a coordinated national policy to deal with the issue at the root level.

Experts have recommended that the state provide education, or gender-sensitive market-driven vocational training to rescued victims, to help them reintegrate into society, but such schemes are yet to become a reality.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Relief workers and aid agencies are worried about the security, protection and psychological health of women and children in post-disaster settings. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Naresh Newar
DABI, Nepal, Aug 27 2014 (IPS)

Living in a makeshift tarpaulin shelter, which barely protects her family from the torrential rainfall or scorching heat of this remote village in southern Nepal, 36-year-old Kamala Pari is under immense stress, worrying about her financial security and children’s safety.

The family’s only house and tiny plot of farmland were completely destroyed by the massive landslide on Jul. 2 that struck the village of Dabi, part of the Dhusun Village Development Committee (VDC) of Sindhupalchok district, nearly 100 km south of the capital Kathmandu.

Dhusun was one of the four VDCs including Mankha, Tekanpur and Ramche severely affected by the disaster, which killed 156 and displaced 478 persons, according to the ministry of home affairs.

This was Nepal’s worst landslide in terms of human fatalities, according to the Nepal Red Cross Society, the country’s largest disaster relief NGO.

“My students are too scared to return to their classrooms. They really need a lot of counseling." -- Krishna Bhakta Nepal, principal of Jalpa High School
Though the government is still assessing long-term damages from that fateful day, officials here tell IPS the worst victims are likely to be women and children from these impoverished rural areas, whose houses and farms are erected on land that is highly vulnerable to natural catastrophes.

Left homeless and further impoverished, Pari is worried about the toll this will take on her children, who are now living with the reality of having lost their home and many of their friends.

“We’re not just living in fear of another disaster but have to worry about our future as there is nothing left for us to survive on,” Pari told IPS, adding that their monthly income fell from 100 dollars to 50 dollars after the landslide.

Her 50 neighbours, living in tarpaulin tents in a makeshift camp on top of a hill in this remote village, are also preparing for hard times ahead.

“We lost everything and now we run this shop to survive,” 15-year-old Elina Shrestha, a displaced teenager, told IPS, gesturing at the small grocery shop that she and her friends have cobbled together.

Their customers include tourists from Kathmandu and nearby towns who are flocking to destroyed villages to see with their own eyes the landslide-scarred hills and the lake created by the overflow of water from the nearby Sunkoshi river.

Protecting the vulnerable

Relief workers and protection specialists from government and aid agencies told IPS they are worried about the security, protection and psychological health of women and children.

An estimated 50 children were killed in the landslide, according to the ministry of women, children and social welfare.

“In any disaster, children and women seem to be more impacted than others,” Sunita Kayastha, chief of the emergency unit of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told IPS, adding that they are most vulnerable to abuse and violence.

Women and children are 14 times more likely than men to die in a disaster, according to a report by Plan International, which found adolescent girls to be particularly vulnerable to sexual violence in the aftermath of a natural hazard.

Senior psychosocial experts recently visited the affected areas and specifically reported that children and women were under immense psychological stress.

“The children need a lot of counseling [and] healing them is our top priority right now,” Women Development Officer Anju Dhungana, point-person for affected women and children in the Sindhupalchok district, told IPS.

Dhungana is concerned about the gap in professional psychosocial counseling at the local level and has requested help from government and international aid agencies based in Kathmandu.

Schools are gradually being resumed, with the help of aid agencies who are identifying safe locations for the children whose classrooms have been destroyed.

One school was totally destroyed, killing 33 children, and the remaining 142 children are now studying in temporary learning centres built by Save the Children and the District Education Office, officials told IPS.

A further 1,952 children who attend schools built close to the river are also at risk, experts say.

Trauma is quite widespread, the sight of the hollowed-out mountainside and large dam created close to the river still causing panic among children and their parents, as well as their teachers.

“I lost 28 of my students and now I have [the] job of healing hundreds of their school friends,” Balaram Timilsina, principal of Bansagu School in Mankha VDC, told IPS.

“My students are too scared to return to their classrooms. They really need a lot of counseling,” added Krishna Bhakta Nepal, principal of Jalpa High School of Khadichaur, a small town near Mankha.

International agencies Save the Children, UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) are helping the government’s efforts to restore normal life in the villages, but it has been challenging.

“We need to help children get back to school by ensuring a safe environment for them,” Sudarshan Shrestha, communications director of Save the Children, told IPS.

The international NGO has been setting up temporary learning centres for hundreds of students who lost their schools.

High risk for adolescent girls

Shrestha’s concern is not just for the children but also the young women who are often vulnerable in post-disaster situations to sexual violence and trafficking.

“The risk of sexual exploitation and trafficking is always high among the families impoverished by disaster, and during such situations, girls are often hoaxed and tricked by traffickers,” explained Shrestha.

Sindhupalchok, one of Nepal’s most impoverished districts, is notorious for being a source of young girls who are trafficked to Kathmandu and Indian cities, according to NGOs; a recent report by Child Reach International identified the district as a major trafficking centre.

“Whenever disaster strikes, the protection of adolescent girls should be highly prioritised and our role is to make sure this crucial issue is included in the disaster response,” UNFPA’s country representative Guilia Vallese told IPS, explaining that protection agencies need to be highly vigilant.

Government officials said that although there have been no cases of sexual or domestic violence and trafficking, they remain concerned.

“There are also a lot of young girls displaced [and living] with their relatives and after our assessment, we found that they need more protection,” explained officer Dhungana.

She said that many of them live in the camps or in school buildings in villages that are remote, with little or no government presence.

The government has formed a committee on protection measures and will be assessing the situation of vulnerability soon to ensure that children and women are living in a secure environment.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Child labourers rescued in Delhi waiting to be sent back to their villages. Credit: Bachpan Bachao Andolan/IPS

By Farangis Abdurazokzoda
WASHINGTON, Apr 16 2014 (IPS)

Modern-day slavery can be eradicated from multinational supply chains, but only if global businesses contribute to greater transparency and collaboration, according to new recommendations by Sedex Global and Verite.

“Human trafficking and slavery in the supply chain are global issues,” Mark Robertson, head of marketing and communications at Sedex Global, which provides a collaborative platform for responsible supply-chain data, told IPS.“Modern day slavery carries risks for companies. It can seriously affect a brand’s reputation.” -- Mark Robertson

“But these issue are not unsolvable and there are good examples of companies – and initiatives – tackling the issue.”

There are thought to be some 11.7 million victims of forced labour in Asia, followed by 3.7 million in Africa and 1.8 million in Latin America. Slave labour is part of the production of at least 122 consumer goods from 58 countries, according to the 2012 International Labour Organisation statistics listed in the briefing.

The U.S. federal government compiles its own such list of products produced by slave or child labour. According to the latest update, last year, some 134 goods from 73 countries use child or forced labour in the production processes.

Certain sectors are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking and forced labour. According to the new briefing and backed up by these other lists, particularly problematic sectors include agriculture, mining and forestry, as well as manufacturers of apparel, footwear and electronics.

“Asia is the source of many of the world’s manufactured goods, and also home to half the world’s human trafficking – the majority of which is forced labour,” Anti-Slavery International’s Lisa Rende Taylor notes in the report.

Almost 21 million people are victims of human trafficking worldwide, according to the briefing, 55 percent of whom are women and girls.

Migrant workers and indigenous populations are considered particularly vulnerable to forced labour. The briefing highlights issues that analysts say have not yet been sufficiently addressed, such as “broker-induced hiring traps”, exacerbated by steadily increasing volumes of migrant workers all around the world.

“For workers, labour brokerage increases migration and job acquisition costs and the risk of serious exploitation, including slavery,” the report states. Further, the presence of both well-organised and informal brokerage companies “in all cases” increases migrant vulnerability.

“The debt that is often necessary for migrant workers to undertake in order to pay recruitment fees, when combined with the deception that is visited upon them by some brokers about job types and salaries, can lead to a situation of debt-bondage,” the report states.

Globalised supply chains

Sedex and Verite highlight the importance of sourcing from responsible businesses and offer recommendations for both brands and suppliers on how to engage in ethical practices in supply chains.

“We are hoping to help companies understand the risks that they and their partners face with regard to the modern slavery,” Dan Viederman, the CEO of Verite, a watchdog group, told IPS. “It takes more commitment from companies to really understand what is happening amongst the hidden process among their business partners.”

Viederman says the new campaign by Verite and Sedex Global will work to motivate companies and their suppliers.

Globalisation and “complex and multi-tiered” supply chains have made it massively more difficult to detect forced labour and human trafficking, the new report states. Thus, “companies need tools, protocols and policies to effectively audit trafficking and to establish mechanisms to protect workers.”

The briefing recommends companies step up actions to “raise awareness internationally and externally of the risks of human trafficking” and to establish corporate policies to address related issues. Particularly important is to “map supply chains, which would help identify vulnerable workers and places of greatest risk.”

Sedex Global, with over 36,000 partners, allows member companies to upload all social audit types, which are primary tools for brands to assess their own facilities and those of their suppliers to detect workers abuse.

The Sedex platform highlights social audits, conducted between 2011 and 2013, that show that a “lack of adequate policies, management and reporting on forced labour” as well as a “lack of legally recognised employment agreements, wages and benefits” can indicate a risk of forced labour being present.

“Modern day slavery carries risks for companies,” Robertson says. “It can seriously affect a brand’s reputation.”

Nor is slavery an issue that affects only developing countries.

“Since 2007, more than 3,000 cases of labour trafficking inside the United States have been reported – nearly a third from 2013 alone,” Bradley Myles, the CEO of the Polaris Project, a U.S. anti-trafficking group, says in the new report.

“And there are so many more people who are trapped that we haven’t heard from yet. Business can and should take steps to eradicate this form of modern slavery from their operations and supply chains.”

California model

Consumers also have enormous power – if they use it. But “the issue has not pervaded the conscience of society quite yet,” Karen Stauss, director of programmes for Free the Slaves, an advocacy group, told IPS.

“The word hasn’t gotten out. Consumer power, the company’s buying as well legislative powers, should all be part of the resolution.”

Stauss says a good model comes from a state law here in the United States, called the California Transparency in Supply Chain Act, or SB-657. This would require publicly traded companies to disclose what efforts they are making to eradicate human trafficking and slavery from their supply chains.

Many companies, however, do not yet appear to have formal anti-slavery policies. According to the Corporate and Social Responsibility press release, out of 129 companies urged to conform with the California law by Know the Chain, an anti-slavery group, only 11 have done so.

The director of communications of Humanity United, Tim Isgitt said, “After months of outreach to these corporations, approximately 21 percent on the list are still not in compliance with the law.”

“It is necessary to push all businesses, not only progressive ones, to be more transparent to their customers and their investors in their supply chains,” Free the Slaves’ Stauss says.

“Although multinationals might not be directly involved in the exploitation of forced labour, they can help confront it by using their buying power to influence their direct and marginal partners who are involved in the production of the raw materials, where human trafficking and forced slavery are most prevalent.”

Child labourers rescued in Delhi waiting to be sent back to their villages. Credit: Bachpan Bachao Andolan/IPS

By Bryant Harris
WASHINGTON, Jan 28 2014 (IPS)

Advocacy groups and some legislators are calling on the U.S. government to mandate an increase in corporate supply chain transparency, with the aim of cutting down on the estimated 14,000 to 17,000 people trafficked into the United States each year and the tens of millions enslaved globally.

“Human trafficking is a 32-billion-dollar industry, second only to drug trafficking as an organised crime,” Melysa Sperber, director of the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST), a coalition of human rights groups, told a briefing on Capitol Hill on Monday. “Between 21 and 30 million people are enslaved worldwide.” “We’ve seen kids work for 20 cents a day to buy a couple of potatoes when they go home after a full day of heavy manual labour." -- Karen Stauss

ATEST and its member organisations are working to address one of the underlying mechanisms in forced labour: global corporate supply chains. The coalition is urging lawmakers to adopt legislation that would require companies earning over 100 million dollars per year to file reports on their supply chain and labour management practices, both with U.S. regulators and on their websites.

Because of the complexity of global supply chains, companies are often unaware of coercive labour practices carried out by suppliers and subsidiaries.

“We’ve found that vulnerability to forced labour is pretty pervasive in a number of industries,” Quinn Kepes, the research programme manager for Verite, an NGO focused on labour issues in global supply chains, told IPS. “A large number of companies are at a high risk of having trafficking in their supply chains.”

Businesses often turn to labour brokers at all levels of the supply chain. These brokers, who face very little regulation, can charge workers exorbitant recruitment fees and have received widespread criticism for misrepresenting the work that the people they recruit will be doing.

“Labour recruitment has been a huge issue if you look at the construction of U.S. Army installations in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Karen Stauss, the director of programmes for Free the Slaves, a Washington-based advocacy group, told IPS. “There’s been a lot of documentation of trafficking of workers from South Asia to the Middle East for low-cost construction.”

The U.S. mainland is also not immune to unethical labour recruiters.

In 2012, Omelyan Botsvynyuk, a Ukrainian, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for smuggling Ukrainian citizens to the United States under false pretences. Although Botsvynyuk and his brothers had promised the men that they would be paid 500 dollars a month, they were forced to clean major retail store chains, such as Target and Walmart, without pay.

Botsvynyuk reportedly told the men that they could not leave until they had worked off their debts, ranging to as high as 50,000 dollars.

Such debt bondage is a common tactic used by exploitative recruiters and businesses. Employers can directly levy debts on employees for the use of living facilities and tools needed for the job, such as mining equipment.

“In some cases, debt bondage is happening to people who are not literate and don’t understand how debt and interest accumulates,” said Stauss. “They’re not even aware themselves of how debt is illegally exploited.”

Stauss says that the extraction of so-called conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo has also been found to rely heavily on child labour. Such materials are key components in modern consumer goods.

“We’ve seen kids work there for 20 cents a day to buy a couple of potatoes when they go home after a full day of heavy manual labour,” Stauss said. “Those minerals connect to many different things like laptops, cell phones and electronics.”

Child labour is equally present in the manufacturing sector. A new report from Harvard University found 1,406 specific cases of child labour in the Indian carpet-making industry, which exports extensively to the United States and other industrialised countries.

The Harvard researchers estimate that forced labour makes up 45 percent of the industry’s work force, with child labour specifically accounting for around a fifth.

Encouraging transparency

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama named January the National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. “As we work to dismantle trafficking networks and help survivors rebuild their lives, we must also address the underlying forces that push so many into bondage,” the president stated.

Although currently proposed legislation would not compel companies to take any actual action on questionable supply chain practices, the groups say public pressure is building.

“Right now we don’t have a piece of legislation introduced,” ATEST’s Sperber told IPS. “But [two representatives] in the House of Representatives are supportive of an introduction of legislation that has already been introduced in past Congresses.”

A House of Representatives bill that would require greater transparency for third parties bringing foreign workers to the U.S. is currently sitting in committee.

This proposal “would combat human trafficking, forced labour and exploitation by requiring that workers coming to the United States receive accurate information about the job, visa and working conditions,” Shandra Woworuntu, an anti-trafficking lobbyist, told Monday’s briefing. “The bill also ensures that no recruitment fee is charged to the workers and requires the recruitment agency to register with the Department of Labour.”

Woworuntu herself was flown to the U.S. by a third party agency promising her a job at a hotel in Chicago. After paying a recruitment fee and arriving in the United States, she says the man who picked her up confiscated her passport and forced her into sexual slavery until she was able to escape.

While Congress has not taken action on transparency legislation at the federal level, the state of California has already introduced similar legislation. Yet while that law, known as SB-657, was slated to take effect starting at the beginning of 2012, advocates note that the state has yet to fully implement the law.

“Two years later, [SB-657] hasn’t been implemented,” Ima Matul, a coordinator for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), told IPS. “We’ve been asking the California attorney-general for those corporations and businesses to release any trafficking or slavery involved in their supply chains.”

In the meantime, CAST has endorsed a website called Know the Chain, which catalogues corporations and their supply chains, allowing consumers to better ascertain whether or not forced labour is involved in the products they buy.

“While some companies have not yet posted disclosure statements, others have taken an important first step by posting a statement addressing the majority of SB-657 requirements,” Know the Chain states on its website.

Thus, while California’s state law lacks enforcement, some companies are voluntarily disclosing information on their supply chains and labour practices.

“Kmart, for example, just joined the movement and promised not to have slavery involved in their supply chain,” says Matul.

Shareholders are calling on 15 U.S.-based multinational corporations to ensure that their global supply chains are not facilitating human rights abuses, particularly labour and sex trafficking.

A sex worker near the central station in Rome. Credit: Pier Paolo Cito/Save the Children

In a new campaign running throughout January, the Interfaith Centre on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), which represents 300 shareholder organisations managing around 100 billion dollars in assets, is focusing on two sectors in particular, hospitality and food agriculture. These industries – which include hotels, airlines, restaurant chains, large retailers and agribusiness companies – are seen as particularly at risk for rights violations.

“To properly fight abuses like human trafficking, we all have a role to play – and business must become part of the solution through putting into practice respect for human rights and ensuring their partners, suppliers, subsidiaries and agents do the same,” Amol Mehra, director of the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, a network based here, told IPS.

“Business has a responsibility to respect human rights, but this is more than just compliance with domestic laws. Instead, business must ensure that they, throughout their business relationships and including within their supply chains, avoid negatively impacting human rights and engage in appropriate judicial remediation when violations do occur.”

ICCR is now urging 15 U.S.-based corporations in particular to take a series of steps in this regard. These include agribusiness giants (ADM and ConAgra), retailers (Costco, Kroger, Target and Walmart), airlines (Delta, US Airways and Southwest), hotel chains (Hyatt, Starwood, Choice) and others.

The group’s members recently released a new set of principles and recommendations that would lead companies to make specific declarations to ensure that the entities within their supply chain will comply with a host of international agreements aimed at cracking down on various forms of human trafficking, including the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, passed in 2011.

Companies are also urged to publish regular updates on steps taken in this direction, as well as analysis of their impact.

“These are not aspirational recommendations – they’re very practical and very much based on ongoing and emerging practice,” Lauren Compere, an ICCR board member and managing director at Boston Common Asset Management, a social investment firm, told IPS.

“We started to really engage on how to implement the Guiding Principles, taking our practical experience over the past 15 years of engaging on child labour, human trafficking, modern-day slavery. These principles offer a roadmap for companies to take to engage on this.”

ICCR has a standing relationship with each of the 15 companies, which Compere and others feel could be particularly amenable to talking about additional steps to safeguard their supply chains.

“Where companies generally still miss the grade is on disclosure, especially within the hospitality sector. Disclosure on mitigating risks around trafficking really needs a lot more systematic, standardised reporting,” she says.

“For the moment, most of the information that is available is anecdotal, without data even on the percentage of operations that are covered. Some companies are getting better on general human rights disclosure, but we’re not seeing that yet on human trafficking.”

On dealing with grievances or the mitigation of risks, she says, in many companies there is still no real understanding of the full impact that corporate policies are having.

20-30 million

Estimates on the size of the global human trafficking problem are notoriously difficult. According to the International Labour Organisation, around 14.2 million people were thought to have been engaged in some form of forced labour in 2012, while another 4.5 million had been coerced into sex work.

Others say these numbers are likely far higher, with global numbers perhaps topping 30 million.

ICCR became involved in the intersection of corporate responsibility and trafficking in 2006, when a group of Scandinavian investors began pressuring the Marriott hotel chain over reports of child prostitution rings making use of the some of the company’s facilities in Costa Rica. Within a year, Marriott had rolled out a new, pointed policy on the issue, and has since engaged in annual shareholder disclosure.

While Marriott was never accused of knowingly facilitating these exchanges, the lack of stated policy was seen as detrimental to broader anti-trafficking efforts.

“Hotels, motels and others in the entertainment sector are all vulnerable to sex trafficking, and we’ve seen that if these types of businesses open their eyes they may find trafficking taking place within their operations,” Karen Stauss, director of programmes at Free the Slaves, an advocacy group here, told IPS.

“While agriculture is a bit different, all across the world this is a sector where workers are very ill-paid, often coming from rural areas where they may not have a strong education, including on their rights. Without a doubt there is no way that we’ll solve the human trafficking problem until multinational corporations get involved – they have huge buying power and thus can access much farther down the supply chains.”

Pressure from consumers, advocacy groups and national and international regulation has had an increasing impact in recent years, with more and more companies recognising that actions taken throughout their supply chains can be a damaging liability. Further, Stauss notes that the use of, for instance, forced labour typically offers profits only far down the supply chain, with little to no positive effect for parent companies.

“Unfortunately, we still constantly see companies using the language of ‘impossibility’, claiming that their supply chains are so long that it is impossible to tackle these problems,” she says.

“The way I see it, this is just a lack of vision and creativity. The information and communications technology industry, for instance, has been pushed to take this on [due to U.S. legislation] and we’re now seeing that sector doing things that five years ago they said were impossible.”

Yet while recent federal legislation here is starting to have an impact on certain industries – such as the electronics sector – at risk of using so-called conflict minerals, there is currently no broader U.S. law requiring corporations to take steps to ensure that their supply chains are free of human trafficking.

Important precedent in this regard has come from California, however, which in 2010 passed landmark legislation requiring such regular disclosure for certain large companies (related information is available here).

While efforts to adopt a similar law at the federal level failed during the last congressional session, Stauss says supporters are expecting a new such bill to be introduced in coming weeks – and notes that the coalition of lawmakers and stakeholders in favour of such a law has continued to grow.

Collage of news reports on trafficking in the Spanish press, from Mujer Emancipada de Málaga, an NGO that provides assistance to women in need. Credit: Inés Benítez/IPS

By Inés Benítez
MÁLAGA, Spain , Dec 23 2013 (IPS)

María came to Spain from Paraguay to work as a housekeeper in a hotel. But it was a false job promise, and she ended up in a nightclub, where she was forced to work as a prostitute.

One night she told a client the truth. Moved by her story, he started hiring her services day after day until he managed to find her a job somewhere else – and married her in the end.

It may sound like the plot of a movie with a happy ending, but it is a real case that happened recently, and was told to IPS by Felicia Carmen Marecos, a social worker with the general consulate of Paraguay in the southern Spanish city of Málaga.

It is just one of many stories of women who were trying to flee poverty and fell prey to human trafficking networks.

Most victims of trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation in Spain come from Brazil, China, Nigeria, Paraguay and Romania, according to the police, who estimate the number of victims in the country at 12,000 and the earnings of the sex trafficking rings in Spain at five million euros (six million dollars) a day.

María (not her real name) came to the country encouraged by her sister, who was already living in Madrid and was in on the scheme.

Women forced into prostitution tend to be drawn in with the help of family members, friends or acquaintances.

The young woman dared to speak out and file a complaint. But most victims do not do so “because they are coerced from their countries of origin,” Helena Maleno, an expert in migration and human trafficking with Colectivo Caminando Fronteras, an NGO that defends migrant rights, told IPS.

Many of the victims do not speak Spanish and are under threat, in debt, and unaware that help is available. They are also undocumented immigrants, and are afraid to go to the police.

Besides, “they don’t tend to recognise that they are victims,” said Paula Mandillo, a social worker with Mujer Emancipada, an association in Málaga that helped over one hundred women, mainly from Nigeria and Romania, in 2012.

The first European Commission report on human trafficking in Europe, published by Eurostat in April 2013, put the number of victims between 2008 and 2010 at 23,632, with the number growing by 18 percent over the three-year period. Of that total, 15 percent were children and adolescents.

In 62 percent of the cases, the victims – mainly women – were trafficked for sexual exploitation, while 25 percent were trafficked for forced labour, and 14 percent were victims of other kinds of trafficking, such as organ removal.

In 2010, Spain had the second-highest number of victims of human trafficking in the European Union, after Italy, according to the study.

The organisations making up the Spanish Network Against Human Trafficking are calling for a comprehensive law against the crime, which would penalise trafficking in all its forms and not only sexual exploitation.

They are also demanding a human rights focus, arguing that an approach based on crime prevention, law enforcement and control of migration currently predominates.

One example of this was the case of an undocumented immigrant who was arrested and deported when she reported to the police in a coastal town in the province of Málaga that she had been raped, IPS was told by sources with the Guardia Civil immigrant support team (EDATI) in this southern Spanish province.

And a 24-year-old Romanian woman, who was fined by the police several times for working as a prostitute on the streets of Barcelona, committed suicide on Sept. 23. Only then was it discovered that since 2000 she had been a victim of a trafficking ring that sexually exploited some 200 women, and that the pimp was her own husband.

“To raise society’s awareness about what is happening, it has to be made clear that trafficking is not prostitution or irregular immigration, but that there are undocumented immigrants and people who are sexually exploited who are victims of trafficking,” Maleno said.

If the authorities in Spain find signs that an undocumented immigrant is a victim of trafficking, they must inform her that she has a 30-day grace period, when deportation procedures are suspended.

During that period, she receives advice and support from specialist organisations, and decides whether to report the crime and work with the police and judicial authorities in the investigation.

If she cooperates, she is eligible for a residency permit, under a 2009 reform of the law on aliens.

“It’s a problem for the prosecution of the crime to be based on whether or not the victim files a formal complaint. Even if they don’t report the crime, their human rights must be protected,” and that means not deporting them to their countries of origin, where their lives may be in danger, Maleno said.

Many Nigerian women who fall prey to trafficking networks have made a hazardous journey, involving walking across part of the Sahara desert, often pregnant or with children, to Morocco, where they take ‘pateras’ – small, flimsy boats used to traffic immigrants from North Africa – to the Spanish coast.

“The 30-day grace period is very short compared to what they have gone through,” said Maleno. In countries like Norway the period is six months, and NGOs participate in identifying victims, the Colectivo Caminando Fronteras activist pointed out.

Human trafficking was not classified as a crime in Spain’s penal code until December 2010. It is now punishable by sentences of five to 10 years in prison.

In the four cases that since then have resulted in firm convictions, 10 perpetrators were found guilty, Marta González, who heads Proyecto Esperanza of the Congregación de Religiosas Adoratrices, an order of Catholic nuns, told IPS.

According to Maleno, there is “an extremely big problem” in Spain involving victims of trafficking for sexual purposes from Romania, because they are legal immigrants, since Romania is an EU member.

For that reason, “they don’t enter into the circuit of protection established by the protocol against trafficking,” she said, adding that another problem is how frequently they are moved around the country and Europe as a whole.

The sex trafficking rings often use babies, whether to help women from sub-Saharan Africa get into Spain or to coerce them into forced prostitution, she said.

Until this year, when pateras landed on the coast, the authorities did not identify the babies. But now they have started to take their fingerprints, and are increasingly carrying out DNA tests on women and children at border posts, to verify that they are related, Maleno said.

In September, the government granted asylum for the first time to a woman who was a victim of a sexual exploitation network – a Nigerian mother of a three-year-old girl, who arrived by patera in late 2010 and decided to report and fight against the trafficking ring.

Many women in Nepal say they are treated as inferior citizens. Credit: Naresh Newar/IPS

By Naresh Newar
KATHMANDU, Aug 3 2013 (IPS)

Ten years after she was trafficked to an Indian circus, 22-year-old Radha has returned home stateless, with no document to prove she is a Nepali citizen. Her parents are Nepali but she married a fellow Indian circus member, and does not qualify to be a Nepali citizen any more.

Her husband died without supporting her for Indian citizenship, and now she has no proof she ever married him.

“I don’t know where I belong any more,” Radha told IPS. She is struggling to start a new life with her two young children. But without a Nepali ID it’s hard. She cannot get a job in public service or the private sector, she cannot pursue higher education or buy property, and she cannot claim any inheritance.

She cannot open a bank account, and cannot register the birth of her children, or even register their marriage eventually.

There are tens and thousands of young women like Radha in Nepal, who don’t have citizenship. Trafficked victims have particular difficulty getting citizenship, according to Shakti Samuha, an organisation set up by trafficking victims.

According to the NGO, women who are trafficked or lured to India by Nepali traffickers are usually minors, and the minimum age for applying for citizenship is 16. When they return, most are already married and have lost contact with their parents, who could confirm their credentials.

The only choice for most is to work in the most exploitative informal sector – the so-called entertainment industry, especially ‘cabin restaurants,’ dance bars, cheap motels and massage parlours which harbour prostitution.

“Most of the trafficked victims or sexually exploited young Nepali women are further victimised when they have difficulty getting citizenship,” Biswo Khadka, director of Maiti Nepal, an NGO fighting trafficking and rescuing victims, told IPS. Precise numbers are hard to come by because lack of registration means lack of accurate data.

According to a report ‘Acquisition of Citizenship Certificate in Nepal,’ by the Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD) published in April this year, an estimated 4.3 million people in Nepal do not have citizenship certificates, in a total population of 26.6 million. Activists say most of these are women and their children.

At the heart of the problem is the constitution. Following the end of a decade-long armed conflict in 2006 and elimination of the monarchy the same year, an interim constitution was framed in 2007 to introduce significant social reforms to end discrimination based on caste, ethnicity and gender.

The Nepal Citizenship Act 2007 states that a Nepali can acquire citizenship based on either mother or father. But the chief district officers usually ask for the father’s citizenship.

FWLD executive director Sabin Shrestha told IPS that the law also does not apply if the child’s mother was married to a foreign national.

“A Nepali woman married to a foreign national is literally stripped of her national identity, and her children become the worst victims,” said advocate Sushma Gautam. She has successfully fought many cases of citizenship for women in the Supreme Court.

Government officials say it is incomplete documentation and not the gender bias that is the problem.

“Citizenship is a crucial issue for the government and it is making efforts to help its rightful citizens,” Umesh Dhakal, chief district officer of Parbat, about 300 km northwest of Kathmandu, told IPS. He is former coordinator of the citizenship cell at the home ministry.

Dhakal said the government had organised mobile camps in remote areas all over the country from April to June this year and distributed more than 600,000 citizenship certificates.

“As long as there is complete documentation, whether from the mother’s or the father’s side, every citizen will get the citizenship,” he said.

The National Women’s Commission says the chief district officers (CDOs), who are the sole authority for issuing citizenship, should implement the law without being discriminatory in their decision.

“The CDOs need to change their attitude and be more gender-sensitive on the citizenship issue,” said Ansari.

Smartphones are a new phenomenon in trafficking; a couple of years ago the majority of crimes were being committed using desktops. Credit: Yuichi Shiraishi/cc by 2.0

By Lucy Westcott
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 28 2013 (IPS)

In the second half of June, law enforcement in Chişinău, Moldova’s capital city, received an email from a parent telling them their child had been kidnapped.

A mixed group of police and prosecutors, they had to trace the email back to the kidnapper, a skill that is becoming essential in an increasingly digital age.“Nearly every crime seems to have some kind of phone involved in it.” -- Adam Palmer of UNODC

Thankfully, it was only a training exercise. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) visited Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, at the request of authorities there, who were struggling and under-trained to deal with an increase in cybercrime and Internet-based human trafficking.

UNODC provided three days of training in basic forensic techniques, such as tracing a criminal across the Internet and finding images and other information on a locked computer.

“[It’s] old-fashioned detective work in a digital age,” Adam Palmer, a senior expert in cybercrime and emerging crimes at UNODC, told IPS.

While official figures on human trafficking are notoriously hard to come by due to the crime’s secretive nature, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 21 million people are forced into labour around the world, including 4.5 million victims of forced sexual exploitation.

With the pressure of emerging technologies, anti-trafficking organisations as well as law enforcement need to adapt their knowledge of new techniques and devices used by criminals. Smartphones are a new phenomenon, Palmer said; a couple of years ago the majority of crimes were being committed on desktops.

“Nearly every crime seems to have some kind of phone involved in it,” Palmer said.

For authorities in Moldova, a Tier 2 ranked country in the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report, many of the training exercises were new. Before the ubiquity of electronic devices, vital information might have been written in a notebook, accessible by simply reading the pages, Palmer said.

Now, police are more likely to have to crack codes, with information saved on password-protected devices.

But the problem of Internet-based sex trafficking, which is the use of the Web for the recruitment, advertisement and sale of people, overwhelmingly women, is not confined to Moldova. It is also an issue in developed countries like the United States.

Amy Fleischauer, director of victim services at the International Institute of Buffalo, a group that helps immigrants and refugees settle in Western New York, has found survivors of sex and labour trafficking being recruited and advertised via the Internet. The institute spends time with survivors so that they know how easily they can be tracked through Facebook, GPS on their phones and their Internet history.

It’s important to realise the inherent interrelation between sex and labour trafficking, Fleischauer told IPS. She recalls a number of cases involving agricultural workers in the United States, where brothels were established on farms to “satisfy workers”.

“Sex trafficking almost always involves labour trafficking,” Fleischauer says. “Focusing on just sex trafficking does a disservice to victims.”

Increased awareness of trafficking through the Internet has caught the attention of companies that run the Web, and whose products are being used to facilitate the crime.

“The most effective way to investigate cybercrime is… to work with private sector companies,” Palmer said, adding that these companies are willing to help as traffickers are abusing their technology.

Jacquelline Fuller, director of giving at Google, told IPS the company has a “long-standing interest” in helping to combat child exploitation and trafficking over the Internet.

“More recently, we took a deep dive to see… how we could help,” Fuller said.

Google has provided several grants, including one for 11.5 million dollars, to help three anti-trafficking organisations, Polaris Project, La Strada International and Liberty Asia, partner together to more effectively combat the crime.

In April, Google gave three million dollars to help fund the Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network, and two Internet companies, Salesforce and Palantir Technologies, provided technology that allows the organisations to share data.

“[These groups can] use technology to get ahead of the bad guys,” Fuller said.

Bradley Myles has seen first-hand the changing face of sex trafficking. The CEO of Polaris Project, a U.S.-based non-profit that works directly with survivors of human trafficking, Myles told IPS that from 2005 to 2008, Craigslist was one of the worst channels for Internet-based sex trafficking.

After Craigslist removed many of the advertisements that led to women and girls being exploited, Myles now sees similar issues with the website Backpage.

“There’s a very clear, identifiable pattern there,” Myles says. “Sometimes it’s parents calling in after seeing their child’s ad on Backpage, their 16-year-old daughter being advertised as a 19-year-old.”

Backpage has been made aware that traffickers are using their site, but Myles wonders whether protective measures put in place are enough.

“It’s a fluid crime,” Myles told IPS. “We’re in a new world of having the technology partnerships to make everything we’re doing more robust.”

The true extent of Internet-based trafficking is still unknown, Fleischauer says, but increased awareness and getting police more educated on types of cases, recruitment and strategies could help.

“I think we have no idea what’s out there,” she says.

Free Eritrea democracy march in San Francisco. The country is plagued by human rights abuses, and “torture, arbitrary detention, and severe restrictions on freedom of expression” and has been called a giant prison by activists. Credit: Steve Rhodes/CC By 2.0

By Saikou Jammeh
BANJUL , Jun 22 2013 (IPS)

In February 2013, 20-year-old Mohamed*, like hundreds of thousands of other Eritreans, fled the brutal dictatorship in that East African nation in search of a better life in neighbouring Sudan.

But for Mohamed and others like him, escaping into neighbouring countries has brought no end to their suffering. Many of them have become the victims of human traffickers and Mohamed’s family believes that this was his fate too.

According to Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) “World Report 2013”, Eritrea is plagued by human rights abuses, and “torture, arbitrary detention, and severe restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and religious freedom remain routine.” In addition, military conscription is compulsory and can last for an indefinite period of time.“For the last 21 years, Eritrea has been ruled by President Isaias Afwerki, who turned the country into a giant prison, and isolated it regionally and internationally.” -- Human rights activist and founder of Human Rights Concern Eritrea, Elsa Chyrum

The international NGO Freedom House, which conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights, stated in its “Freedom in the World 2012” report that Eritrea is one of the nine most repressive societies in the world. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reported in 2011 that 220,000 of the country’s 5.4 million people have fled the persecution there.

Mohamed managed to cross the border safely. Once in Sudan, he phoned his mother and told her he had made it. A few days later, he phoned her again to say he had been kidnapped. His cousin, Eden*, believes that he was abducted by criminals who work in conjunction with Sudanese security officials.

“His mother was devastated,” Eden told IPS from Banjul, the capital city of The Gambia, during a recent visit to the West African nation.

“My cousin’s kidnappers were asking for a ransom of 30,000 dollars. His mother is poor, so she started asking people for donations,” she said.

Eden said the last time her family heard from Mohamed, he said he had been sold to the Bedouin people of Egypt.

“One day, my cousin phoned again and said: ‘Mum look, I’m disabled. No need to pay anything. I may not survive much longer.’” They have not heard from him since and fear that he is dead.

Human rights activist and founder of Human Rights Concern Eritrea, Elsa Chyrum, said in a speech in January at the Eritrean Community Center in Boston, United States that the kidnapping of refugees has become common practice.

“This is done when the unsuspecting refugees are handed over to the highest of bidders from the Rashaida tribe (an Arab ethnic group in Eritrea and northern Sudan). The Rashaida take their human chattel all the way to Sinai (a peninsula in Egypt) at gunpoint.

“In the Sinai they give them to the Bedouin Arabs, and the new arrivals are tortured to reveal a number of a family member, often in the diaspora, for their extortion business. The family member is told that his brother, sister, niece or cousin is in their hands, and unless they can pay a certain amount of money, they will be killed.”

She said that the kidnapped refugees are tortured, raped, and murdered – their bodies used to harvest organs.

Eden said: “Those who can afford it pay huge amounts of money to smugglers or high-ranking officials in exchange for safe passage across the border.”

“Sudan has failed to stop its military from continually extorting money from refugees and collaborating with the kidnappers, and causing insecurity around refugee camps. In Egypt, the state is reluctant to arrest the kidnappers.”

But for many, remaining in Eritrea is not an option.

“For the last 21 years, Eritrea has been ruled by President Isaias Afwerki, who turned the country into a giant prison, and isolated it regionally and internationally,” Chyrum told IPS.

“The Eritrean constitution, with its extensive protection of rights, has been ignored. The national election, which had been scheduled for 2001, has been indefinitely postponed, and the national assembly effectively nullified.”

A number of Eritreans have been jailed for opposing Afwerki’s policies.

Amongst the detainees are 20 prominent critics and journalists and 15 top government officials, who have been held incommunicado for a decade. Some are feared dead.

“These were not ordinary people,” said Chyrum. “They include two former foreign ministers, ambassadors, chiefs of staff, and army generals who have done so much for the country and fought alongside the current president. The only crime they committed was to ask the president to implement the constitution.”

Eritreans also suffer limitations and restrictions on their right to freedom of speech and movement. And there is little religious tolerance in the country.

“Only four religious sects are allowed in the country,” Chyrum said. They are Sunni Islam, Eritrean Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant.

“Can you imagine, in Eritrea, if you want a passport, your application has to be approved by a committee set up by the government?”

A UNHCR official who refused to be named told IPS that without the assistance of regional governments, the U.N. agency could not put a stop to the trafficking of Eritrean refugees.

“If people are being abducted, clearly we have to do more. But I do want to say that the UNHCR cannot do it without the governments of Sudan or Egypt. And so, we are talking to those governments. It is my strong belief that it is only the governments who are going to lead the way in this process,” she said.

But it may not happen soon enough.

“We’ve been talking since September 2012 about holding a meeting with the governments. We’re still talking,” the source said.

Sheila Keetharuth, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Eritrea, recognised the enormity of the task of preventing human rights violations in that country.

“I have to say that I have one of the most difficult mandates at the U.N. Human Rights Council,” she told IPS. “Up to now I cannot get access to the country, though right from the beginning, before I started talking to civil society, I knocked at the doors of Eritrean authorities. The door hasn’t opened up to now.”

*Names have been changed to protect identity.

Trafficking turns people into merchandise. Credit: Amnesty International

By Fabíola Ortiz
RIO DE JANEIRO, May 20 2013 (IPS)

In contravention of international law, in Brazil trafficking in human beings remains invisible and unpunished, which encourages the practice of trafficking for sexual exploitation, forced labour, illegal adoption and the trade in human organs, according to experts.

Local laws punish drug trafficking more severely than human trafficking. The sale of drugs carries penalties of between five and 15 years, while trafficking of persons for sexual exploitation is punished with a maximum sentence of eight years, with work release allowed.

“Human trafficking is still an invisible crime. What we have here now is real impunity,” judge Rinaldo Aparecido Barros, a member of the National Council of Justice’s working group on human trafficking, told IPS.

An average of 1,000 persons a year are recruited in Brazil and sent abroad, the public prosecutor’s office said at a public hearing on “Tráfico de pessoas: prevenção, repressão, acolhimento às vítimas e parcerias” – Trafficking in persons: Prevention, repression, care of victims and (illegal) associations – that it held in this city on Friday, May 17.

The goal was to gather and share information about combating human trafficking and to organise joint action to prevent and crack down on the crime. The meeting focused on Brazil’s role as a source country of victims for other parts of the world.

Brazil is also a destination country for victims of human trafficking, and there is internal trafficking of Brazilians for exploitation within the country’s borders as well.

In the last three years, 3,000 Brazilians were transported abroad and subjected mainly to sexual exploitation and slave labour, participants at the meeting described.

“This is a significant number. A large group of people have been deprived of their dignity. The thousands of cases documented every year do not represent the total, because we do not know how many cases escaped our notice,” said federal deputy attorney-general Raquel Elias Ferreira Dodge.

The actual number of victims sent abroad by human trafficking rings is unknown, participants at the meeting agreed.

“We have to work more effectively so that these crimes are condemned without delay. The crime of trafficking in persons injures human dignity,” said Dodge, who is a member of the Higher Council of the federal public prosecutor’s office (MPF).

She said, “Slave labour negates the personhood of the individual and converts the victim into merchandise that can be smuggled and trafficked.”

But hindering the fight against human trafficking in Brazil is the fact that it is only a crime when it leads to sexual exploitation or slave labour, Erick Blatt, the representative of the federal police in Rio de Janeiro, told IPS.

“It is very hard to identify the crime; investigations can only be initiated on the basis of reports, without the certainty that illegality can be proved,” said Blatt, who is also the representative of Interpol, the international criminal police organisation, for the state of Rio de Janeiro.

Moreover, when it comes to international trafficking, “most people go voluntarily to the place where they are exploited: the majority do not know that their passports are going to be taken away,” he said.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) defines human trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, for the purpose of exploitation.”

The forms of coercion cited are “abduction, fraud, deception, the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person.”

People smuggling, on the other hand, is limited to profiting from covertly transporting migrants, at their request, from one country to another where legal entry would normally be denied at the border. This is illegal, but no deception may be involved.

Article 231 of Brazil’s criminal code defines the crime of sexual exploitation, and article 149 describes subjection to slave-like conditions. Both crimes are punished relatively leniently, with lighter sentences than for other offences.

The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, adopted in 2000 and ratified by Brazil in 2003, specifically identifies human trafficking crimes and proposes wide-ranging punishments, which Brazil has still not incorporated in its laws.

“We are going against the flow of international legislation. In Brazil, the issue has been inadequately treated. Human trafficking is a crime against humanity that robs people of their human dignity,” Judge Barros complained.

He said the best measures for fighting human trafficking were those that block the assets of the trafficking rings, in order to attack their economic flank.

Trafficking in persons is run by complex international crime syndicates that, in Brazil, recruit poor women who have no opportunities for a better life, lawyer Michelle Gueraldi of the Trama Project, an umbrella group for NGOs that combat human trafficking, told IPS.

These women emigrate voluntarily, often out of the desire to improve their lives, and end up being exploited in Spain, the United States, Portugal and Caribbean countries, among others, she said.

Blatt added that Brazil, in turn, is a destination country for women victims of human trafficking from Eastern Europe, especially Hungary and Poland.

“Trafficking in persons is a violation of human rights. The Trama Project is working on prevention and on victim protection. We also receive denunciations of cases, and we find that the majority of recruiters are persons known to and trusted by the victims,” Gueraldi said.

In February the Brazilian government established its Second Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons, but the challenge is to put these policies into practice, she said.

Blatt admitted that tracing victims of human trafficking across borders is difficult for the local police and for Interpol.

“If communications between the police and the prosecutors are slow here in Brazil, imagine what communications are like between police forces internationally,” he said.

Human trafficking is extremely lucrative. In Europe alone it generates some 3.2 billion dollars a year, according to speakers at the meeting.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says there are at least 2.5 million victims of human trafficking worldwide. A survey by UNODC found that 58 percent of respondents were victims of sexual exploitation and 36 percent of slave labour.

It is as if they have given up hope of ever seeing their girls again. They are an Adivasi family from a remote village in Assam state in India, nestled in the Himalayan foothills. The picturesque surroundings belie the hollowness they feel within.

Three of their four daughters have been missing for the last five years.

“Poor and ignorant, the parents simply don’t know where their girls have gone,” says Sunita Changkakati, executive director of the Assam Centre for Rural Development, an NGO in Guwahati.

The Adivasis, an aboriginal tribal people whose ancestors the British had recruited from central India to work in the tea plantations of Assam, are particularly vulnerable to the menace of human trafficking, though women from tribal areas in lower Assam and others from neighbouring states in the northeast have been falling victim too.

Wily agents stalk the countryside, hunting for gullible prey. The bait most often is the promise of big money, the lure of city life or the prospect of escaping a humdrum existence. Some even dangle the prospect of marriage, hooking impressionable girls under the pretence of having fallen in love with them, ‘marry’ them in secret, and instead of a promised honeymoon, deliver them to prostitution.

Accordingly, in the last couple of years, there have been media reports of girls from the north-east of India and other parts of Assam being rescued from brothels in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and elsewhere in the country."The mother was obviously lying, but what could we do?”

According to the records of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the state government of Assam, the recorded number of girls trafficked for sale outside the state started with a minuscule four in 2005, went up to 37 in 2009, 54 in 2011, and 79 in 2012.

These numbers could be far from the real story, since parents seldom register cases of their missing daughters.

Not all the missing girls end up in the sex trade. Bizarre as it may seem, many of them, some under the age of 18 – the stipulated year of adulthood under the Indian Constitution – find themselves getting married to much older farmers in the faraway Indian states Punjab and Haryana.

Female foeticide and infanticide have skewed the male-female sex ratio in these two north Indian states, leaving men in these villages with no women to marry. Hence, the practice of ‘buying’ consorts from middlemen. Getting a bride from the north-east may have been unheard of earlier. No longer so, never mind if there is little in common between their cultures.

Some of the other abducted girls find themselves in the domestic help circuit in India’s metropolitan cities. Recruited by affluent families, “they are often underpaid, working almost as bonded labour,” says Stephen Ekka of Pajhra (meaning ‘spring of life’), an NGO in Tezpur in the north-eastern state Assam.

“Trafficking doesn’t mean only those sold into the sex trade,” says Ekka, who himself belongs to the Adivasi community. “Anyone who is unwillingly confined to a work-field can be considered as being trafficked.”

Rajeeb Kumar Sharma, general secretary of the Global Organisation for Life Development (GOLD), an NGO in Guwahati, tells IPS about the case of a domestic worker recruited by a Delhi-based agent who complained of stomach pain, and when taken to a hospital was found to have had an organ removed without his knowledge. The hapless man was told that since so much expense had been incurred on his behalf, he had to make good the loss by bringing another able-bodied person from his village.

Poverty and unemployment are the primary factors driving the villagers to desperation; the lack of social mobility and of education and opportunities for young people compounds the problem.

Assam’s famous tea plantations, a major source of employment for the state’s populace and crucial contributor to its revenue, have been facing hard times in recent years. To cut costs, many have started employing only casual labour, especially during the tea plucking season. It wasn’t unusual in this scenario for girls to go out looking for work, even if their parents remained unaware of where the money was actually coming from.

Even in the remotest village, the name ‘Delhi’ now evokes instant recognition and is perceived as the magic word to open a world of untold riches. Often, a girl ‘from Delhi’ comes visiting, attired in ‘fancy’ clothes and heavy make-up, and bragging about how much she earns. It’s often a ruse, the surface glamour a lure to recruit other girls.

Trapped thus, many girls set out to follow a dream, and return after visiting a nightmare, if they return at all. Changkakati of the Assam Centre for Rural Development recently came across a girl in a village who was barely 14 years old and nursing a six-month-old baby. “When we asked her mother about it, she said her daughter was married. The husband (she said) was apparently from Bihar, but since he had a shop in Delhi, he could not be with them. The mother was obviously lying, but what could we do?”

NGOs like the one Changkakati works for or Ekka’s Pajhra, among many others, have been working in the past few years to raise awareness about human trafficking, helping rescue victims and rehabilitating them. Helping them in their efforts are local student bodies as well as organisations such as the All-Adivasi Women’s Association of Assam, headquartered in Majbaat near Udalguri town. Their members have easy access to the local community, making it easier to keep tabs on girls missing in the area.

NGOs in the state have taken to implementing Ujjwala, a scheme to combat human trafficking, particularly of girls sold into prostitution. Vigilance committees look out for possible cases of trafficking, and work in close collaboration with the police to rescue girls. In 2012, 78 girls were admitted to shelter homes.

Rehabilitating the rescued girls, however, is difficult, especially if they have returned after a few years, due to social stigma. “Some girls have come back with really bad health conditions,” says Pajhra’s Ekka. “They look depressed too but do not want to talk much about what may have happened to them.”

The state CID department has set up 14 anti-trafficking units. Special vigil is kept at railway stations.

Minister of the Secretariat of Policies for Women Eleonora Menicucci, in her office. Credit: Courtesy of SPM

By Fabiana Frayssinet
RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 11 2013 (IPS)

The story generally begins in Brazil’s hinterland, with a pretty, young woman from a disadvantaged background and with little formal education, who is drawn in by false promises and ends up in a sex trade network that stretches overseas.

The disturbing trend has begun to be addressed by the government, the justice system, the legislature and even a popular soap opera, with encouraging results.

Sex trafficking is such a complex phenomenon that there is little systematic, reliable data on it. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates the number of victims of what the U.N. describes as modern-day slavery at 2.5 million people or more.

In Brazil, according to the presidency’s Secretariat of Policies for Women (SPM), 475 cases of trafficking were documented between 2005 and 2011. Of that total, 337 of the victims suffered sexual exploitation, while the rest were subjected to slave labour.

“The majority of the women are young, between the ages of 18 and 30, and are in a vulnerable situation: they are low-income, they didn’t have access to education, and they had difficulties finding work,” SPM Minister Eleonora Menicucci told IPS.

“That is why they accept what look at first glance like excellent job opportunities abroad or in another part of Brazil, believing that they will improve their lives and those of their families,” she said.

The victims are recruited all around the country. But an assessment by the SPM and UNODC indicates that sex trafficking recruitment occurs most often in the northeastern states of Pernambuco and Bahia and the central state of Mato Grosso.

São Paulo, whose capital is Brazil’s largest city, is the state where the largest number of victims from other states are taken, and the main spot from which trafficking victims are carried abroad.

“These young women are used in prostitution, and from here they are sent to other countries like Spain, Italy and Portugal,” Eloisa de Sousa Arruda, São Paulo state secretary for justice and defence of citizens, told IPS.

De Sousa Arruda says that fuelling sex trafficking from this country is “the image of Brazilian women as sexy, which sells abroad.”

Recruiters can be found everywhere, even in small towns in the interior. The route generally ends in brothels abroad. The sex trade gangs include Brazilians and foreigners.

They sniff out a potential victim’s vulnerability and approach her “with job offers that are much better than what they can find in the town, neighbourhood or city where they live,” de Sousa Arruda said.

Menicucci said “They offer them jobs as waitresses or in clubs. They tell the women they will pay for their plane ticket and say the first few pay checks will go towards paying off the debt but after that they will receive their full wages.”

But the victims soon find out it was a trap. When they reach their destination, they find that the debt has multiplied, along with the difficulty in paying it off, and the victims become hostages “subjected to degrading conditions of sexual exploitation.”

The victims are kept under constant vigil and are often held in “private prisons.”

“Even if they get a chance to report their situation, they don’t do so, for fear of the threats against their own lives or those of their families,” the minister said.

De Sousa Arruda, whose office is in charge of the National Plan to Counter Trafficking in Persons unit in São Paulo, created in 2009, said the young women who fall victim to the networks “lack orientation.”

For that reason, she said, it is essential to raise awareness on sex trafficking, in order to support the authorities’ efforts against it.

In February, the government established a second National Plan to Counter Trafficking in Persons, which set a 2014 target for opening 10 more units to provide attention to victims, on top of the 13 that are already operating within and outside Brazil.

And more than 400 additional agents will be trained in the fight against trafficking, and international legal cooperation will be strengthened with the help of the UNODC. A total of 716 people from different disciplines received training between 2011 and 2012.

An international hotline was also established in Spain, Italy and Portugal, to receive complaints from victims in those countries. A similar number – 180, the Women’s Assistance Hotline (Central de Atendimento à Mulher) – began to operate in Brazil in 2005.

Meanwhile, a Globo television network soap opera or novela, “Salve Jorge”, the last episodes of which are being aired this month, has helped draw attention to the problem of sex trafficking.

Based on a real case, the programme is about a Brazilian woman forced into prostitution in a nightclub in Turkey. The screenwriter is Gloria Perez, who has focused on social issues like the disappearance of children in her earlier work.

“A novela with such a large audience, broadcast during prime time (21:00) and re-broadcast abroad, is important for helping people understand an issue like this. It helps by saying: ‘be careful’, you or your daughter could become a target of a trafficker. Don’t fall for promises of easy money,” de Sousa Arruda said.

The novela reflects the plight of sex trafficking victims, showing, for example, the young women’s fear of turning to the authorities because they are undocumented immigrants. “It also shows details such as the difficulty of communicating in another language, which is a serious impediment,” the official said.

Salve Jorge actually contributed to saving a young woman from the state of Bahia, who had gone missing in Spain. Watching the novela, her mother realised that her daughter had fallen victim to a sex trade network. The police in both countries worked together to track down, rescue and bring the young woman back to Brazil.

The Federal Police distribute pamphlets in places like airports, to warn people of the risks of accepting job offers in other countries, and provide information on where to turn for help. This has also helped prompt people to take action.

“The most important thing is to tell society that these crimes are much closer to us than we imagine, not just something you see on TV,” said Congressman Arnaldo Jordy, the president of the parliamentary inquiry commission on trafficking in persons.

In recent years, Chile has become a source, transit, and destination hub for human trafficking victims, experts say. According to judicial authorities, forced labour and sexual exploitation are the crimes most frequently associated with this “modern form of slavery”.

“Although human trafficking appears to be a considerably common phenomenon in Chile, the number of criminal investigations does not match the perception that there is a greater number of cases,” Mauricio Fernández, head of the Economic Crimes, Money Laundering and Organised Crime Unit of the National Prosecutor’s Office, told IPS.

“Actual figures must be much higher, with many unreported cases or ignored reports,” he added.

According to statistics made available by the under-secretary of the interior, from 2007 to 2011 only 22 people were identified as victims of human trafficking, most of them women and children. In that same period, 63 individuals were arrested in connection with this crime, and only 10 of them convicted.

The 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report issued by the U.S. State Department, however, identifies Chile as “a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour”.

The document notes that much of the trafficking in persons that occurs in Chile is confined within national borders, although it also involves “women and girls from other Latin American countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia (who) are lured to Chile by fraudulent job offers and subsequently coerced into prostitution or domestic servitude”.

The Organisation of American States (OAS) puts the number of people affected by human trafficking in Latin America at two million and estimates that it generates some 6.6 billion dollars in profits.

Chile only recently adopted legislation to combat this crime, when it revised its Criminal Code in 2011 (Law 20507), criminalising all forms of trafficking in persons, including trafficking for forced labour purposes and the smuggling of migrants.

“Following the criminalisation of these practices there have been some (criminal) investigations resulting in prosecution and sentencing,” Fernández said, although he admitted that “there are certainly many challenges ahead, in terms of training teams of investigators to apply and enforce a regulation that is new.”

He observed that no procedures have been put in place to “efficiently process information on suspicious circumstances that may constitute an offence of this kind.”

“Some countries are transit routes for trafficking victims, others are countries of origin or destinations, but Chile is all of these,” Father Idenilso Bortolotto, vice president of the Chilean Catholic Institute of Migration (Incami), told IPS.

Bortolotto added that this is due to the fact that Chile offers “a certain security” and is an attractive destination, amidst the many difficult “social, economic and political situations in the region”, which provide fertile ground for human trafficking.

In the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, adopted in 2000 to supplement the Convention against Transnational Organised Crime, the United Nations defines human trafficking as recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person through the use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.

Human trafficking made headlines in Chile in 2011 when a scandal exposed the deplorable living conditions of 57 Paraguayan nationals who were working illegally in a rural estate owned by right-wing politician and businessman Francisco Javier Errázuriz.

Errázuriz, a former presidential candidate, was charged with migrant smuggling and taken to court in an action brought by the Interior Ministry and the Human Rights Institute. This past Thursday, Feb. 14, however, the judge hearing the case temporarily and partially dismissed the charges against him, based on a medical report that found him “mentally unfit” to stand trial.

In early 2012, another businessman, Eugenio Mujica, a former honorary consul in Buenos Aires during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), recruited 43 Peruvian nationals to pick plums during the harvest in his south Chilean estate, with false promises of decent wages and accommodations.

Other cases under criminal investigation in Chile involve victims of commercial sexual exploitation who are recruited in Colombia or the Dominican Republic.

Before the law that criminalised it “we thought human trafficking didn’t exist in our country,” said Ingrid Almendras, a social worker with the non-governmental organisation Raíces, which has been investigating Chile’s sex trade for over ten years.

Almendras told IPS that while the law is “a huge step forward,” the fact that it is new means “we’re only just starting” to address the issue.

One very positive aspect that she sees in this law is that it gives foreigners who have been legally recognised as trafficking victims the possibility of staying in Chile, in contrast to what is common in Europe, where victims are sent back to their home countries.

Taking the same protection approach, Incami and the National Women’s Service opened a shelter for women victims of human trafficking.

Almendras noted that “the most damaged” among victims of the sex exploitation industry are girls, boys and adolescents who have been trafficked.

“They find themselves in strange places, with no networks to fall back on and nobody they know. They’re often forced into drug addiction, increasing their dependency and making them more compliant for potential clients,” she said.

According to the social worker, in these cases rehabilitation takes at least three to four years, because that’s how long it takes “to really get somewhere” with these victims, although every case is different.

A pending task identified by the experts consulted is the need to raise awareness on the issue among Chileans and promote greater tolerance towards immigrants.

“A great effort is needed to raise awareness, sensitise people to the plight (of these victims) and inform them,” Bortolotto said.

A recent survey by the Communication and Poverty Alliance revealed that 41 percent of the migrants polled had suffered some form of discrimination by Chileans. That figure is greater in the case of black migrants and respondents from neighbouring countries.

“We still have a long way to go before Chileans know and understand what we’re talking about and realise that it’s a modern form of slavery,” the priest concluded.

Trafficked persons in Iceland often live in cramped living conditions and work up to 16 hours a day. Credit: Sunbeam photos/CC-BY-2.0

By Lowana Veal
REYKJAVIK, Dec 27 2012 (IPS)

For 18 months, a Chinese immigrant named Xing Haiou slept on a massage table in a windowless room in Reykjavik after completing his 12-hour workday.

Brought to Iceland by his distant relative, Lina Jia, Haiou received no wages between June 2002 and December 2003, although Jia paid his parents a monthly pittance for “borrowing” their son to work in her massage parlour.

Xing Haiou eventually accused Jia of non-payment of salary, and received a sum equivalent to 18 months’ work at minimum wage, including overtime.

At the time, he was not formally recognised as a victim of trafficking and forced labour. Today, authorities in Iceland are making a concerted effort to broaded the definition of those terms to better protect victims and survivors.

According to one source, who spoke to IPS under strict condition of anonymity, three questions can determine whether or not human trafficking has occurred: what was actually being done to the person, what methods were used, and what was the purpose of it?

The Icelandic police’s guidelines for trafficking are largely derived from the Norwegian ‘Guide to Identification of Possible Victims of Trafficking’.

These guidelines also seek to correct three common misconceptions of trafficking: that if the person did not take opportunities to escape, he or she is not being coerced; that individuals cannot be said to be victims of trafficking if their current living conditions are better than their previous ones; and that for a specific case to be termed trafficking, the person or group of individuals concerned must have crossed over a national border.

“If people use a definition of trafficking that is too limited, we are excluding most of the victims.  Basically, if a person’s vulnerable situation is being exploited, then it’s trafficking,” according to Margret Steinarsdottir from the Icelandic Human Rights Centre (ICEHR).

“If people come to Iceland of their own free will, even if they know they will be entering a situation in which they will be exploited, they could still be called victims of trafficking,” she added.

Her opinion reflects the framework of the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, which was adopted in Warsaw in 2005.

Steinarsdottir, a lawyer, has worked with numerous people she says could be classified as victims of trafficking. Contrary to popular opinion, not all victims of trafficking are ensnared in the sex trade, nor are the victims always women.

In Iceland, she says that forced labour is prevalent in sectors like construction and agriculture, while a large number of trafficked persons end up as au pairs in private houses.

Restaurants also conceal a large number of forced labourers, mostly from Eastern European countries, who sometimes work up to 16 hours a day.

According to Steinarsdottir, many people mistakenly believe that trafficking is masterminded by groups of gangsters, when in fact many cases involve individuals who are lured by false promises of stable employment.

Sun Fulan, a young Chinese woman, was promised an “eight-hour workday doing light household chores, with Sundays off”.

Instead, she ended up working 14 to 15 hours a day delivering newspapers and leaflets, working in a massage salon and helping to renovate three properties owned by Lina Jia, the same woman who brought Xing Haiou to this country.

Despite the long hours, which also included housework, Fulan received only a fraction of her promised salary. Finally, in February this year, she wrote to the authorities in Iceland and China, informing them of her plight.

Steinarsdottir has also talked to immigrant women who got married in Iceland and were then forced by their husbands to work as prostitutes. In many cases, the men take away the women’s earnings and threaten to send them back to their home country if they complain.

This situation too, she claimed, can be classified as trafficking.

Steinunn Gydu- og Gudjonsdottir, who manages the newly established ‘Kristinarhus’, a refuge for women victims of prostitution or trafficking, has also dealt with a case of forced labour.

“It wasn‘t clear whether the woman had been brought to Iceland only for forced labour or also for prostitution, but all the typical signs were there: she didn‘t have her passport, all of her earnings were taken away from her, and she was threatened,” Gydu- og Gudjonsdottir told IPS.

Asked how authorities deal with cases of forced labour, which primarily occur around the capital, Reykjavik, Asgeir Karlsson from the Icelandic National Commissioner of Police, told IPS, “We normally send people to the trade unions, but otherwise the local (police) branch in the person’s vicinity deals with such cases.”

“I have not heard of any cases of forced labour this year, and cases do not seem to pop up as often as before the bank crash in 2008,” according to Steinarsdottir.

“But that may be because the people concerned are scared of coming forward and complaining, fearing that they will not be able to get another job,” she concluded.

(END)

The arrests last week of the three remaining perpetrators of the alleged Opapa human trafficking ring, which forced 19 people recruited from Hungary to endure long work days, poor living conditions and no pay in the Canadian construction industry, has cast a light on Ottawa’s new measures to combat the crime.

While some advocates argue the one-month-old programme is the most well-coordinated anti-trafficking effort among all stakeholders, others label certain aspects contentious and unfair.

For years, World Vision Canada urged a sweeping initiative targeting the crime both within Canadian borders as well as overseas because the two components are tied together, said Carleen McGuinty, a child protection policy adviser for the NGO based in Toronto.

The international development organisation also asked for a policy addressing labour trafficking because “for every person forced into sexual exploitation, nine are forced into labour,” said McGuinty.

As well, she told IPS, it was important that the government include boys and girls, the “most vulnerable to human trafficking”.

In the end, World Vision Canada was satisfied with a final product containing much of the “language” which will serve as a first step to tackling the crime, she added.

Released in June, the four-year plan will introduce Canada’s first integrated law enforcement team to fight trafficking; boost front-line training to identify and respond to human trafficking and enhance prevention in vulnerable communities; offer more support to Canadian and newcomer victims of the crime; and improve coordination with domestic and international partners combating the activity.

Technically, human trafficking differs from human smuggling because the transported individual has given no consent and is further exploited on arrival in the destination country. However, a soon-to-be-published paper by Canadian criminologist Yvon Dandurand states that people who are smuggled into a country often have not realised they are on the verge of being victimised.

In 2005, the Canadian government specifically prohibited trafficking in persons; previously, the law included offences like kidnapping, uttering threats and extortion.

Due to the clandestine nature of trafficking and the reluctance of victims and witnesses to come forward, it is difficult to make statements about the extent of the crime in Canada in relation to the number of victims, said Sgt. Julie Gagnon, a media relations officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), quoting the agency’s Human Trafficking National Coordination Centre.

However, human trafficking convictions and current investigations into human trafficking are proof that this crime is occurring within the country, Gagnon told IPS in an e-mail.

As of May, the RCMP was aware of 23 Canadian cases in which human trafficking charges were laid, she wrote. Forty-three people have been convicted in these cases, including 22 convictions for sexual exploitation, she said. The Canadian courts are now reviewing another 62 cases involving about 152 victims.

Ottawa’s 25-million-dollar blueprint to battle sexual exploitation and forced labour is not “a ground-breaking plan”, noted McGuinty, the child-protection expert, “and it hasn’t been hailed as such.” Yet, it finally coordinates the activities of federal government departments, provinces and NGOs and includes round tables allowing for stakeholder recommendations, she said.

“At least everyone can work from this, and we can hold our government to account,” McGuinty said, and added that she hopes the programme will deter human traffickers by illustrating Canada’s resolve to deal with the crime.

Yvon Dandurand, a criminologist at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, B.C. and a senior associate at the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy in Vancouver, said the new federal action plan consists of many activities currently undertaken by government departments but which are now being integrated.

For instance, in response to the federal government’s new commitment to bolstering front-line training to tackle human trafficking and increase prevention in vulnerable communities, Dandurand told IPS that the Vancouver centre developed training packages for law enforcement eight years ago. But if indeed there are more cases involving victims reluctant to come forward, he added, investing more money in training makes sense.

“Depending on how this (new plan) is rolled out, it might be an improvement if things are accelerated or more resources are put into it,” he said, but it will not reduce the international dimensions of the crime.

Overall, trafficking is a “complex offence” requiring three major elements – intent, coercion, and lack of consent or deception – which is difficult to confirm, he noted. “Whereas it’s easier to prove that someone had a false passport, or that someone was sequestered and held against their will . . . and basically get evidence on related offences and get a conviction on that basis.”

A more controversial aspect of the revamped national human trafficking strategy was the government’s Jul. 4 announcement that Canadian businesses will be prevented from hiring temporary foreign workers in cases where there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect a risk of sexual exploitation or degrading work. Strip clubs, escort services and massage parlours are among the targets.

In an RCMP report on human trafficking, investigations carried out in the late-1990s found “strong indications” that women were recruited from Eastern Europe for non-sexual work but then made to perform in strip clubs and offer sexual services. Police, however, have been unable to “substantiate” the trafficking of foreign nationals in exotic dance clubs, though the possibility remains, according to the 2010 report.

The RCMP have confirmed one case in which a woman recruited from China for a position at a Canadian restaurant was later “forced to work in a massage parlour performing sex acts”, spokeswoman Gagnon noted.

Although human trafficking charges were laid in this case, the accused was ultimately convicted of other prostitution-related crimes, she added. She said the majority of human trafficking cases in Canada are connected to prostitution but do not involve foreign workers.

For the most part, it is clear that public opposition to the practice of doling out permits to foreigners intent on working in sex-related businesses “embarrassed” Ottawa, argued Dandurand, the academic. He said last week’s legal move is “more a political matter than a genuine victim-protection matter”.

Linking foreign strippers to human-trafficking victims has rattled the Toronto-based Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, which represents both establishments and workers. No one has considered how the 700 dancers, who are not prostitutes, will be victimised once they are stripped of their legal papers and lured “into the underground for these predators to exploit them . . . in prostitution rings,” warned executive director Tim Lambrinos.

“The women are not going to go home,” said Lambrinos, adding that legal action is now the only option for the association’s members. The women, many of whom send money to their families overseas, will now be “reluctant to report any abuses or improprieties because they’re here in Canada illegally”.

In the past, his association has posted notices offering toll-free phone numbers for women to contact if they are being held against their will, but he argued he has fielded no calls. It would be difficult to commit such a crime, he said, as dancers interact to a great extent with their colleagues and the public, and would be able to walk out of a club if they wish.

Mary Taylor, a former stripper of 21 years, believes the government’s new foreign-worker guideline is a positive move for both international and local dancers. The law may force club owners to improve working conditions in order to entice greater numbers of Canadian women to enter the business, she said.

In 1997, Taylor co-founded the Exotic Dancers Association of Canada, which recently became inactive due to funding challenges. She still, however, advocates for the rights of women in the trade and laments that the industry has gone from “burlesque entertainment to foreplay in public”.

As for criticism that distressed foreign dancers denied a work permit under new regulations will be forced to take jobs in a private massage parlour or “a hole in the ground”, she replied: “They can do that now anyway.”

Taylor, who urges increased government scrutiny of strip clubs and massage parlours, said she speaks regularly to dancers. In this capacity, she told IPS, she has heard stories about foreign workers in Toronto being denied their passports and locked overnight in clubs.

The RCMP’s 2010 report indicates that nations with a high unemployment rate are among the “common source countries” of trafficked victims, raising legitimate concerns that a declining global economy may drive more desperate people overseas toward risky situations rather than greener pastures.