Human Trafficking Watch

An unintended result of government-forced population control: Chinese police arrest baby snatchers - Times Online:

Police began to receive reports in September of two men on a motorcycle who grabbed toddlers as they played in the street – some in broad daylight and within sight of their parents. The first to disappear was a two-year-old girl. Then on November 14 a two-year-old boy vanished off the street. A two-year-old girl snatched on December 9 was finally dumped on the street after family and friends gave chase. But five days later a three-year-old boy was abducted.
Mothers began to stay at home, preventing their children from going to kindergarten. They locked their doors before dark. Even adults stopped speaking to strangers, anxious that the abductions could spread. After all, women have for many years been targets of gangs who sell them to men, usually farmers in remote regions, who have failed to find a wife.

If this story proves to be true, human trafficking will get more extensive news coverage than ever before.

Report: Natalee Holloway Suspect Involved in Thai Sex Trafficking:

A suspect in the 2005 disappearance of an Alabama teen in Aruba is involved in selling Thai women into prostitution, a Dutch TV reporter claims. Reporter Peter De Vries has made a second hidden-camera expose on Dutch student Joran Van der Sloot, who was believed to be with Natalee Holloway when she vanished while on a senior trip to Aruba. De Vries won an Emmy this year for another report on Van Der Sloot, 21, in which the student admits to dumping Holloway?s body after she suddenly began shaking and died as they were kissing. De Vries? latest report, which was shown Sunday night on Dutch television, shows Van der Sloot telling someone posing as a sex-industry boss that he can get passports for Thai women and girls who think they are going to the Netherlands to work as dancers, DutchNews.nl reported.

I can see the pain in Natalee Holloway’s mother when she appears on TV trying to push the investigation further. I think I would do the same thing, especially in light of the incompetence shown by the police in Aruba. I wonder now if it was incompetence or collaboration.

Alleged Sex-Trafficker Accused of Forcing Young Girls Into Prostitution in New York City:

Federal prosecutors accuse a 24-year-old man of being a violent pimp who forced young girls and women into prostitution in New York City and Long Island.

The suspect was arraigned Wednesday in Brooklyn, N.Y., on sex-trafficking charges that carry a possible life sentence on conviction.

Prosecutors allege that he advertised the services of women between the ages of 15 and 20 on Craigslist.

Court papers state that the women arranged meetings with clients at hotels in Brooklyn, Queens and on Long Island. The girls were paid about $200 for an hour of sex, cash that was then given to the suspected pimp.

FBI agent Evan Nicholas said in court papers that the suspect slept with his prostitutes and threatened them with violence.

It’s always encouraging to know our tax dollars for law enforcement do pay off when a huge bust like this happens. ABC News: Child Prostitution Sting Rescues 47 Children:

In the last three days, the FBI and police from 29 cities rescued 47 children from 73 alleged pimps and more than 500 others who authorities say sought to exploit them. Among those children saved: a 12-year-old from Texas; a 13-year-old from Ohio; and a 14-year-old from Michigan.

“This is organized crime, these people are moving kids from city to city,” said Ernie Allen, president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “They are involved in 21st century slavery. ? This is a problem that is happening on Main Street USA.”

I would like to see and in-depth follow-up with information on where these children came from and how many of those arrested had some kind of relationship with them, whether it was friends or family or just random.

Free at last: female slave who dared to take Niger to court - Times Online:

The Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) ordered Niger to pay Ms Mani 10 million CFA francs (

It’s sad that during the illegal immigration coverage and political debates, human trafficking hardly registers as an issue. So stories like this will continue to be told: FOXNews.com - Teen Girl Allegedly Enslaved, Sexually Assaulted in Seattle - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News:

Five immigrants from Afghanistan enslaved a teenage girl they brought to the United States, with some forcing her to do chores and one ? her 37-year-old husband ? beating and sexually assaulting her, according to a federal indictment unsealed this week.

The girl is from an impoverished single-parent home in Afghanistan, and she was informally adopted by another family there that forced her to marry at age 13 in 2005, Emily Langlie, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said Thursday. The girl’s husband is Mohammad Atahee, a friend of the adoptive family; U.S. officials don’t recognize the marriage.

Atahee and three of the family’s members were already living in the south Seattle suburbs when the girl’s adoptive mother, Nasima Yousuf, 70, brought her to the United States in 2006, as part of what prosecutors say was a plot to enslave her. Yousuf’s husband, Mohammad, 84, had filed an immigration petition to bring the girl to the U.S., claiming his wife was her biological mother.

Once in the country, the indictment said, the girl, identified only as JV1, was forced to live with Atahee, who beat her and sexually assaulted her. She was forced to spend at least three days a week at the Auburn home of Maruf Yousufi, 42, and his wife, Nahid, 29 ? caring for their children, doing laundry, cooking and cleaning. Maruf Yousufi is Mohammad Yousuf’s son.

This is a must-read:

Teen recounts horror of sex slavery - TODAY: People - MSNBC.com:

A typical 16-year-old in a middle-class home in suburban Pensacola, Fla., Newell?s nightmare began innocently enough: A new friend she had met in high school asked her to come to her home for a sleepover. Newell?s mother, Lisa Brant, didn?t like the idea, but after weeks of lobbying by her daughter, Brant met with the girl and the man she said was her father to make sure her daughter would be safe. But the girl?s ?father? was really a convicted felon, and the girl, who had a record of prostitution in Texas, was an accomplice in the abduction. ?Her dad took us to this house and said he’d be right back and he left us there,? Newell recounted in a taped interview. ?And I asked for some water because I was thirsty. And I drank the water and I blacked out.?

Police arrest 121 in child porn raids - Europe- msnbc.com:

Spanish police arrested 121 people in the country’s biggest-ever crackdown on child pornography, seizing discs containing millions of video and photo files shared by a network that distributed them in 75 countries, authorities said Wednesday. Two of the suspects produced pornographic material themselves using members of their own families, police said in a statement. Those arrested came from all kinds of backgrounds, including pilots, salespeople, porters, taxi drivers and bank employees, it said.

The UN published a report on the trafficking of children in South Asia (India). Naturally, this is more about the report than it is about actually stopping the trafficking itself. But I don’t want to take away from the report’s content, which is important:

Launching a report on Preventing and Responding to Child Trafficking in South Asia, UNICEFs Child protection specialist Lena Karlsson said, child trafficking is a neglected form of human trafficking as children risk being picked out as undocumented migrants, juvenile delinquents or unaccompanied minors.

Though the governments of South Asia have developed national plans of action and also adopted laws to criminalise trafficking, legal frameworks needs to be strengthened to further protect children from all forms of trafficking and to assist child victims with legal and psychological support, the report states.

South Asian children are being trafficked for various forms of sexual exploitation such as prostitution, sex tourism, child pornography, paedophilia and labour exploitation in agriculture and industries.

It’s easy to criticize the UN as a whole since its founding premise that all nations are equal is flawed. However, the UN publishes really well. The ability to write things up and present them to the world is a UN strength. Instead of playing “peace-keeper”, the UN can be rechartered as an international information clearinghouse, even better than the Federal Citizen Information Center in Pueblo, Colorado. As in the case of this report, the content is horrific. This is child slavery. This report is published and it goes on top of a stack of human trafficking reports. This little tidbit will ensure nothing will happen:

“The girls, mostly from Muslim families, tribal communities and scheduled castes, belonging to these south Indian districts, have become more confident and have started demanding their rights, including right to education and vocational training,” the report states. In Nepal, where children face threat of violence, abuse and exploitation, sensitisation programmes conducted by the para-legal committees with the assistance of UNICEF have raised awareness about risks, human rights and support structures among children and women, the report says.

Calling out the link between Islam and modern day slavery is more than any committee can handle diplomatically.  At least we will have a record of it somewhere.

The very fact that this is going on in Saudi Arabia tells us many things about the Saudi culture. Their PR firms can peddle a lot of nonsense about how modern they are, but the Saudis are entrenched in their old ways.

Child-protection groups say children are often given away in return for hefty dowries, or as a result of old customs in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.

Depraved. Sick. Sad.