Human Trafficking Watch

27-year-old Philip Thompson pleaded guilty to child porn charges and was sentenced indefinitely to prison in Britain, using a wait-and-see approach to how long he’ll actually serve. His lawyer made excuses for him:

Lawyer Brian Russell said Thompson had cooperated with police since his arrest in February.

“This is really a young man who has fallen into that stereotype of a rather sad and lonely teenager who spends too much time in a darkened room in front of a computer screen,” Russell said. “He has not had much life experience to get himself mature.”

Immature? I hope there aren’t a lot of people buying into that line of thinking when it comes to child porn trafficking online. Calling Thompson a stereotype insinuates that child porn is something acceptable if you only know the circumstance. In addition, Thompson is 27 years old, not a teenager.

It is these situations that make me wonder how some defense attorneys sleep at night. At least the judge had a reasoned opinion of him:

Judge Michael Taylor gave him an indeterminate prison sentence, saying he must prove he is not a risk to society before he can be released.

He told Thompson he was “somebody who is prepared to go to extreme lengths to feed your lust. You are a very dangerous individual indeed.”

Indeed.

I hate the way that people abuse good things for their evil purposes:

A Santa Barbara man is charged with advertising on Craigslist for a guide who would help him find children to have sex with in Thailand.

Michael Patrick Mahoney had his bond set at $100,000 Monday in federal court in Los Angeles. He was arrested Saturday by federal agents at Los Angeles International Airport after he boarded a flight for Bangkok. He was carrying children’s stuffed animals, Disneyland shirts and chocolates.

The 51-year-old faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of a child sex tourism charge.

The investigation into Mahoney began last week after immigration officials noticed his ad on the Craigslist Web site.

Officials say an undercover agent posed as a travel guide and sent an e-mail offering to arrange meetings with children.

I have been ill and had to take time off. I’m back now and will catch up as quickly as I can.

When you describe a monster that is both intangible and dangerous, but continues to ensnare victims based on nothing more than simple morbid curiosity or extreme financial and personal hardships, that would be human trafficking. To introduce you to this monster, read The Tide Online’s article: The Monster Called Human Trafficking.

Trafficking in person, also known as human trafficking is the modern practice of slavery which is the largest criminal industry in the world today.

In the past, Nigerians have been used to the term drug trafficking, but in recent times human trafficking has replaced the common prostitution.

Human trafficking has been portrayed as dehumanising. The rising incidence of this phenomenon is based on the fact that Nigerians have become too materialistic to the extent that much homage is being paid to the rich without asking how they accumulated their wealth.

Trafficking in children for economic reason is seen as one of the worst forms of child labour.

Indeed, victims of trafficking are not only forced into labour and sexual exploitation, but are also being tortured and humilitated.

Despite the effort of Government the world over and NGO’s to stop trafficking in persons the trend has continued unabated.

In most countries, traffickers operate with total impunity even in the most severe cases.

However, here in Nigeria, the number of victims of human trafficking is growing rapidly and this obviously, is affecting the socio-economic and cultural development of the country.

For instance, in the south east report indicate that there is the growing rate of kidnapping of girls who are later sold for between N15,000 to N20,000 to ready buyers as house helps.

There are also quite a number of rape cases reported as well.

Police authorities September last year disclosed the arrest of two people who offered to buy a six-year old girl for N600,000 in Maiduguri, Borno State capital.

The disclosure followed the arrest of six people including a medical doctor alleged to be involved in the sale of children.

The doctor was also handed over to the Police for allegedly masterminding the birth of babies with the connivance of women who had unwanted pregnancies to NAPTIP.

It is a sad commentary to note that unregistered and illegal hospitals and maternity homes are springing up in the neighborehoods. These establishments go for young girls who are pregnant and helpless.

Such institutions reports, says, they shelter and take good care of them until delivery time and are made to sign out their babies before delivery.

These unfortunate girls are given a little token of about twenty to twenty-five thousand naira depending on the sex of the baby, for job well done.

In Nigeria, the major factor aiding and fueling the business of human trafficking could be explained in terms of lack of economic opportunities for youth.

When there is no job for these vibrant youths, they become vulnerable to unacceptable forms of behaviors. The danger that stare these victims in the face is the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

According to the head of national agency for the prohibition and trafficking in person and other related matter (NAPTIP) Kano State zone, Ahmed M. Bello at a recent workshop disclosed that over 60 percent of victims of trafficking repatriated to the country tested HIV positive.

The latest development is that the traffickers now engage in human organs trafficking, forecefully taking their victims organ like kidney for diabolical purposes.

This is an indication that victims are faced with many dangers across the globe. Human trafficking, no doubt has become the current social issue of the time and the startling revelation is frightening.

These crimes extend beyond the bounds of law and are an affront to human dignity and unless there is proper implementation of human trafficking and child labour laws, the effort to end the ugly trend would remain futile.

Irrespective of the fact that trafficking in persons has a direct consequence on the victim; it must also be viewed holistically from the standpoint of what the nation loses as an entity.

Therefore, the naton’s law should be built on the belief that every human life is precious. There is a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable, as the victim see little of life before they see the very worst side of life.

Therefore, let all hands be on deck in the fight against the monster of human trafficking.

Ex-WCW Wrestler Hardbody Harrison Sentenced To Imprisonment For Sex Trafficking, Forced Labor

Sociopath,  Hardbody Harrsion had it all figured out:

From April to August 2005, Norris and a co-conspirator, Aimee Allen, lured his victims to his homes in Cartersville with promises of careers in professional wrestling. Once there, Norris turned the recruited women, many of whom were poor, homeless or addicted to drugs, to work for him as prostitutes and servants.

The victims were forced to have sex with Norris and other men at nightclubs, in apartments, at hotels, in the back of Norris’ truck, and in other locations in North Carolina and northern Georgia. Norris kept the earnings of his forced prostitution ring to himself.

Norris kept the victims indebted to him to force them to serve him. He also prevented the victims from escaping and isolated them from the families.

Photo credit goes to ninemsn staff

Every once in a while, I’ll see a story like this one where people are kept against their will as performers. This usually happens with Chinese citizens, but obviously can happen anywhere.

They were forced to work 15 to 20 hours a day for about $200 a week instead of the promised $957, with $757 deducted as “expenses for their upkeep.”

An appalled spectator tipped off the police after seeing the show, in which Giusi, the 19-year-old woman, tried to escape from the piranha tank “trembling with terror” her head was held down by Ingrassia.

Her 16-year-old sister, Olga, was bitten by snakes that she was forced to drape on her body, and she had injuries to her stomach where the snakes had wound themselves too tightly around her. The circus owners had rubbed ointment on snake bites on her legs but had refused to take her to a doctor.

Police said the Bulgarian family had lived in the back of a cockroach-infested lorry used for animal transport. The only meat they had been given since January consisted of leftovers from the circus owners’ Easter lunch last weekend.

Reports said Giusi had a tumour on her ear for which she had twice been operated in Bulgaria. Doctors had told her never to get water in her ears, especially cold water. However the water tank in which she was forced to swim with eight piranhas was kept at a temperature just above zero in order to make the piranhas lethargic.

It’s no surprise that Juvies are used to recruit prostitutes: Police: Teen pimp lures girls into illegal sex. Underage proxies have been used for decades for everything else from armed robbery to drive-by shootings. Why not prostitution? Juvies are arrested and prosecuted while their mentors continue to escape any justice. When the Juvies turn 18, instant clean record.

“It’s a really horrendous affair,” said Dallas police Lt. Chess Williams.

Police estimate there are hundreds of teenage prostitutes on the streets of Dallas because there is a big demand. Recently, they found a 12-year-old girl dancing naked at a nightclub.

“I can’t believe that a 13-, 14-, 15-year-old child knowlingly injects herself into a world of prostitution,” Lt. Williams said.

But it did happen, and the 13-year-old in this case may have talked another school friend into prostitution.

Police won’t say what school the girl attended, but they’re not surprised. “One of the remarkable things we learned through all of this is there’s a tremendous amount of money in all this, so a huge demand for young girls in prostitution world,” Lt. Williams said.

Police said the young girls aren’t acting alone. They say some of the same people who are pimping out the adult prostitutes are the same ones exploiting young girls.

Today, the U.N. made another press release related to modern day slavery: Past injustices should spur battle against modern forms of slavery - Ban Ki-moon.”

Even as we mourn the atrocities committed against the countless victims, we take heart from the courage of slaves who rose up to overcome the system which oppressed them,” Mr. Ban said at a special ceremony at UN Headquarters marking the first International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.”These brave individuals, and the abolitionist movements they inspired, should serve as an example to us all as we continue to battle the contemporary forms of slavery that stain our world today,” the Secretary-General told those gathered at the event, which included performances by African drummers, dancers and poets and a steel pan troupe from the Caribbean.Mr. Ban noted that even today, millions around the world, including children, are suffering under the yoke of racism, forced labour, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.Not only is the world shamed by these horrible crimes but it is also challenged to respond, he said. “Let us honour the victims of the slave trade by remembering their struggle. Let us carry it forward until no person is deprived of liberty, dignity and human rights.”

 The reality is that slavery never stopped. It continued throughout other parts of the world, even after the Emancipation Proclamation. Notice that Ban-Ki Moon didn’t name any specific country. That’s because the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade involved the United States. For all of the talk about modern day slavery, the UN has a hard time naming names and passing resolutions against Islamic, Communist, and other oppressive governments. You can’t fight human trafficking (or any other crime for that matter) unless you deal in facts. 

Since the news of former NY governor Spitzer has hit the news, I’ve watched story after story appearing about the underground world of prostitution. Stories like this one, this one, and this one, try to explain why men pay for sex, as if it needs explaining. “The world’s oldest profession” is what it is.

However, one particular opinion piece stood out to me last week and I wanted to comment on it. It was posted on womensenews.org by Juhu Thukral: Sex Workers Need Safety, Not Prosecutors. Thurkal argues that there is a difference between prostitution and human trafficking:

For one thing, any new expansion of the Mann Act would again conflate trafficking and prostitution, bringing police more and more wrongly into the bedrooms of consenting adults.

The thrust of this argument is that to end trafficking, you have to end prostitution, which muddles the two issues. Again, trafficking and prostitution are separate issues.

When sex workers or children are abused, coerced or tricked, they need help, not jail.

Their human rights should be protected, not only from violence but also from the police who routinely abuse them.

There is no indication yet that any sex worker was abused in the Spitzer case, if indeed there is any case here at all. Shaming him is not going to stop prostitution and it will do nothing to halt trafficking into sex work.

His case in fact shows once again that arresting people just for having sex, whether they are sex workers or clients, only makes the situation worse.

I think Thukral’s issue is well argued to a degree. However, there are definitely moral issues involved that can’t be ignored. Prostitution is certainly supply for a demand. Should prostitution be accepted socially as something between consenting adults? To go there, you have to examine why prostitution is illegal. While the legality of prostitution in many places has been dictated by religious ethics, the practical reasons are not insubstantial.

First, I believe to view prostitution as socially acceptable is to be at odds with believing that everyone deserves a minimum amount of respect and equal treatment. It’s as if to say to the prostitute, “I just have a need and you are really not worth the time I’d give a real person. Here’s a few bucks.” Prostitution removes the ritual of relationship and eliminates mutual respect. While prostitution may be the world’s oldest profession, just as old are relationships and pairing.

Next, as feminists have argued from day one, objectification of women can lead to them being seen as less than human. The problem is that there is a difference between sexual attraction and objectification and the two are confused in modern culture. Part of this can be blamed on Hollywood and the stereotypical prostitute with a heart of gold, for example, Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Just like movies can glorify gang life, there are big screen misrepresentations of prostitution, showing little in the way of consequences and the day-to-day reality. And along comes Ashley Alexandra Dupre, cashing in on being a prostitute. Regardless of her future career of becoming a pop star, model, or author, she will have launched that career because she was a high-priced prostitute. This is not a respectable way to start a career of any kind, but the media is eating this story up and calling it the American dream. I don’t like the thought of young girls all over the country aspiring to follow in her footsteps. Also, pop culture does have an impact. Don’t forget that “pimp” used to be a negative term and women used to be insulted at being called “bitches” or “ho’s”.

Finally, prostitution encourages bad behavior from men and there are always victims in their wake. From destroying their own families to trafficking young girls, the perpetrators do hurt people. Nothing good comes from prostitution. To accept it legally and morally is to sanction abuse, neglect, and slavery. Media examples of consenting adults exchanging goods for services like car repairs or carpet cleaning are the exception, not the rule.

The problem with the world’s oldest profession is that it is the world’s oldest profession. Legalizing it will not stop trafficking; just research the problems with sex slaves in Amsterdam. But just because it’s been around since society doesn’t mean we have to accept it. We choose not to accept murder, and it’s been around just as long.

I agree with Thukral in that the demand must be cut for these women to be freed. Coming down hard on prostitutes will not stop the industry because the prostitutes are not the ones with the money, contrary to recent media reports.

One of the persons named in Pornography and Its Apologists commented to set the record straight on some facts regarding Sex Week at Yale.