Human Trafficking Watch

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.

A mother and son were apparently tapped into the Mexican sex slave on demand network.

Gregoria Salgada Vazquez and David Salazar were charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault of a child after they allegedly had the girl transported from Mexico to Houston, where they kept her pad locked in a room since Jan. 1, the TV station reports.

She reportedly was allowed to leave the room only when the two of them were present.

Police said the girl allegedly was forced to have sex with Salazar and also was taken to a Houston nigh [sic] club that the pair own and was forced to have sex with clients, the station reported.

She was ordered, trafficked in, and used in clubs just like drugs.

There are instances where illegal immigrants should not be deported, and the Washington Post published an excellent article about that very issue.

Molina, who works with the District-based La Cl¿nica Del Pueblo and founded a Virginia-based human rights organization for Latinas, said many of the women go from poverty in their countries to poverty in the United States and find themselves bound emotionally, psychologically and economically to the men who brought them across the border. Breaking that bond is one of the biggest challenges, she said.

“It’s a mixture of hatred and thankfulness,” she said. “They know they are exploited and being abused, but this is the same person who helped them cross the border. This is the same person who helped bring all the members of their family and who is going to bring their children.”

The real criminals are the traffickers and enslavement should qualify them for a lifetime in prison making small rocks out of big rocks. A good way to deal with the victims is to reward them for help in prosecution with a formal, legal process for staying in the country.

I have a small backlog of illegal immigration related stories. Some are older, but they underscore the issue that illegal immigration encourages human trafficking.

• Nearly 50 Charged in Mexican Border Human Trafficking Ring
• Human smuggling ring with Fort Pierce ties is back in court
• Three Memphis, Tennessee Men Sentenced for Role in Sex Trafficking Ring
• From human trafficking suspicion to drug trafficking arrest
• Human-trafficking ring hit, agents say

I’ve seen several articles trying to differentiate between illegal immigration and human trafficking, mainly for the reason that immigrants consent to being smuggled. I think this differentiation is more political because it suggests that illegal immigration is not linked to human trafficking. But you can see from the above-linked articles that some victims of human trafficking start out with the intent of sneaking across the border but end up enslaved. Human trafficking seems to be more intertwined with the movement of illegals across the border than a strict definition allows. If you take the politics out of it, it’s clear that you can’t crack down on human trafficking without cracking down on all forms of smuggling people.

Illegal immigration makes it so easy to manipulate the immigrants. They are the target of politicians who want them to vote. They are the target of businesses who want them to pay premiums. They are also the target of individuals who use their illegal status to keep them has house slaves.

Celestin, now 22, testified Wednesday that she considered suicide after years of beatings and intimidation. She tearfully described sleeping on the floor, rummaging through cast-off clothes in the garage for something to wear, bathing from a bucket or a garden hose and scrubbing floors when she should have been in school.

She said Theodore and Maude Paulin often struck her with their hands, shoes or objects such as a curling iron or a mortar if she didn’t finish the work to their satisfaction.

Defense attorneys argued during trial the Celestin’s allegations of abuse were motivated by her desire to be a permanent legal resident of the U.S.

The jury was also asked to consider whether Paulin should forfeit her home and other property used to keep Celestin working and out of school.

This went on for six years.  This is not isolated. Think of this story the next time you hear opponents of enforcing immigration laws making excuses for keeping things as they are.

It appears that many children have been rescued from a large, worldwide child porn ring. What was interesting about this story was the admission by law enforcement that this ring was sophisticated technically and socially.

In all, more than 400,000 pictures, video files and other images showing children engaged in sexual behavior were produced, advertised, traded and distributed globally in the online pornography ring, according to U.S. and international authorities. The sting, which started in Australia, also netted accused pornographers in England, Canada and Germany.

Some victims were as young as 5 years old. Others were preyed upon for innocent characteristics such as wearing their hair in pigtails.

Authorities won’t say how they eventually broke through several layers of encryption, background checks and other security measures the pornographers used to protect their online user group from being accessed.

The highly sophisticated porn ring was run like a business, FBI Executive Assistant Director J. Stephen Tidwell said Tuesday, with the lewd images used as currency instead of cash.

“This is beyond a quantum exponential leap for us to see folks that have gone to this much trouble to produce this kind of volume of horrific exploitation of children,” Tidwell said in an interview. “But with 400,000 [images] we’re going to be at this for years, trying to find the victims.

I believe the future of child porn is even more layers of security to protect the perpetrators. Australia’s Courier Mail has an excellent and detailed article about the police operation, including some details about the victims. These children were raped and abused by people closest to them, further proof that trafficking is not just for sleazy underworld figures. It could be happening in anyone’s neighborhood.

Two years later, the Queensland-driven global police sting rescued more than 20 children from a life of sexual abuse and netted 22 members of The Group.

“These men were leading bizarre double lives, and being part of this network was more important than their real-life existence,” Det-Insp Rouse said.

The men were arrested last month in simultaneous raids in Australia, the US, Germany, Britain and Canada. Two Australians were arrested, including a federal public servant in Townsville, who is an alleged ringleader.

More than 100 online users who bought child pornography were arrested worldwide, and four commercial sites, including one that showed more than 40 children being sexually abused, were shut down.