Human Trafficking Watch

An important point is made here about the definition of what human trafficking actually is.

Voluntary Sex Slaves:

Unfortunately, authorities often define sex slavery rather widely, with the distinction between involuntary “human trafficking” and voluntary “people smuggling” routinely ignored in practice. This means that efforts such as the UK’s Operation Pentameter – which “aims to rescue and protect victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation and to identify, disrupt, arrest and bring to justice those involved in criminal activity,” and pursues this goal by raiding brothels – often end up imprisoning voluntary migrants rather than liberating slaves.

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.

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.

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.?

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.

This is an interesting story about the out-of-control gang activity in British Columbia. Among the vices, human trafficking tied to sex crimes appears:

Their major centres of criminal operation are Metro Vancouver, southern Ontario and Montreal, the report said. Some of the B.C. crime groups are also involved in human trafficking, it said.

“A small number of organized crime groups, mostly based in B.C. and Quebec, are involved in the facilitation of international trafficking in persons (TIP), it said.

“Conversely, several street gangs are active within the domestic TIP market for the purposes of sexual exploitation. These groups facilitate the recruitment, control, movement and exploitation of Canadian-born females in the domestic sex trade, primarily in strip bars in several cities across the country.”

From the kansascity.com Crime Scene blog, James Hart posts a press release from  US Attorney John Wood:

Ling Xu, also known as “Cherry,” 46, Zhong Yan Liu, also known as “Lucky,” 36, and Cheng Tang, also known as “Tom,” 22, all citizens of China residing in Overland Park, pleaded guilty in separate appearances this morning before U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan.

Each of the defendants pleaded guilty to coercing persons to travel across state lines and national borders to engage in prostitution and illegal sexual services.

They also pleaded guilty to money laundering by wiring more than $500,000 from the proceeds of that unlawful activity to China. Xu also pleaded guilty to aggravated identity theft for using the passports and identification of her female workers in order to make most of those wire transfers. All three defendants remain in federal custody

The Kansas City Business Journal has more.

Some law enforcement officials have gotten together to give presentations on human trafficking. It’s sad that when I see an article like this, it appears to be Human Trafficking 101 and the narrative is pushed that it’s new to everybody and we need to understand what’s going on.

It’s a brutal form of organized crime that entices young women to come to the United States with promises of legal employment, and traps them in prostitution or forced labor with violence against them and often death threats to families back home, the top prosecutors said.

“The women were all vulnerable, they had all been courted by men,” Milgram recalled of one Brooklyn-based prostitution ring she prosecuted. “There were rapes, there were forced abortions. . . . We characterized some of it as torture.”

“We’re only going to make progress on this . . . by making everyone understand what a big problem this is,” Christie said. “I tell people in law enforcement, “All you have to do is have one of these cases, and you’ll understand.’ “

This is a bizarre story in that the perpetrator, Jeremy Noyes,  allegedly was attempting to convince a New Zealand woman to raise her daughter as his sex slave. The FBI was tipped off by a classmate via a Web site and then a former girlfriend confirmed the allegations. However, the FBI can’t confirm the mother and daughter exist.

Noyes wanted them to move in with him and that “his long term intent was to assemble a ‘family’ of female sex slaves that would begin with” the woman and her daughter.

“Noyes intended to impregnate (the 4-year-old) when she was between the ages of 8 and 14 and then continue to breed the future offspring that would result from his plan,” Noyes’ classmate told the FBI. “Noyes intends to buy a farm or an island where he could put his new society together.”

The FBI investigation said it found women who corresponded with Noyes online and, in turn, the child-sex images in his e-mail account earlier this month.

I’m always astounded when women are willing to deal in child porn and even more so when those women involve their own children. I can only hope the women who sent him the images don’t actually have children. Hopefully the images will lead to their arrests also.