Trafficked Twice

A young woman was trafficked into prostitution in Kolkata, India, and then rescued at age 16.  After more than a year of freedom and healing, she was victimized again, and trafficked into a brothel across the country to Mumbai.  It took rescuers more than four months to find her again in the vast red light district of an enormous city.  Watch the story at International Justice Mission’s web site.

Congress Members Ask Craigslist to Stop Abetting Human Trafficking

Is Craigslist assisting human traffickers?  It appears that some of our congressional representatives are concerned that Craigslist is abetting illegal activity. Despite Craigslist’s pressured replacement of the “Erotic Services” section with a new “Adult Section,” members of Congress sent a letter asking Craigslist to respond to a number of pointed questions:

• “What means do you intend to employ to ensure that those who seek listings in the new ‘Adult Section’ are not victims of unlawful trafficking, and that the ‘users’ of their ‘services’ are not unlawful, paying customer johns or violent abusers?
• What level of cooperation do you intend to establish with police agencies to ensure the enforcement of criminal laws and the faciliation of criminal investigations?
• What accountability will there be for employees — and for Craigslist — if listings for illegal activity are posted?”

You can read the entire letter. Congressional Craigslist Letter 2009-06-10

Human Trafficking Books – a theme of hope

Hey Book Person!  Welcome to the Human Trafficking blog.

Are you looking for books related to human trafficking, modern slavery, sex trafficking, bonded labor, and other related issues? I updated the “Books on Slavery and Human Trafficking” page to add two things:

      

1. Images of the books, because…. hey, we all like pictures, right?
2. Links where you can purchase each of the books.  (I’ve included different book sites so they’re not all just links to Amazon or whatever.)

It can be overwhelming to read about human trafficking.  You can be paralyzed by the enormity of suffering and evil.  However, would it surprise you to know that a common theme in many of these books is HOPE?  These authors will tell you there is hope that slavery really will be history. Read the stories of people that are dedicating their lives to fighting the problem. Many of their accounts remind us that there is a God who cares about the suffering that oppressed victims endure.  You may find that you’ll begin to share their hope that the war against slavery is capable of being won within our generation.

My 1st request… if you’ve read any of the books in my list, please leave a comment on the “Have you read these books?” page and give your opinion of the book.  Yes! Release the inner NY Times book reviewer in you!  People are much more likely to buy a book when they’ve heard a genuine recommendation from someone like you.  (Full disclosure… I don’t make any money from the sale of the books or by anyone clicking on the links… I just want to connect people with helpful resources.)

And my 2nd request… if you know of any good books on modern slavery, human trafficking, sex trafficking, bonded labor, and related topics, let me know so I can include them in the list.

Thanks for visiting!  Click on the “Books on Slavery and Human Trafficking” link at the top of the page

-Carl

The Olympics, Human Trafficking, Prostitution, Aboriginal Women

While most of the world is getting ready to host, compete, attend, watch, protest, or exploit the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, a group of aboriginal women in Vancouver are preparing to fight forced prostitution and sex trafficking connected with the 2010 Winter Olympics in British Columbia, Canada.  The June 2008 issue of the Stop Trafficking Newsletter highlights issues of prostitution and sex trafficking of aboriginal and indigenous women in Canada and the US.

In addition to informing the reader that aboriginal women in Canada are significant numbers of the prostitutes there, the writer of the lead article asserts that legalized prostitution not only doesn’t protect women prostitutes, but it increases their subjugation, and legitimizes the pimps and johns who keep them there.  Do you agree?

Going to the Olympics? So are Human Traffickers…

The Olympics, The World Cup, and other grand-scale sporting events are magnets for human traffickers because of the enormous international tourist populations who travel to attend.  The May 2008 Issue of the Stop Trafficking Newsletter highlights problems of Human Trafficking connected with the Olympics. The Stop Trafficking Newsletter is an excellent monthly source of information about Human Trafficking, both in the US and internationally.    Read the May 2008 issue, or visit the main site to see archived issues.  You may contact the author of the newsletter to join the mailing list and get the monthly updates directly.  Highly recommended!

Carl’s Note (6/8/2009) – Some estimates prior to the 2006 World Cup predicted that as many as 40,000 victims of human trafficking would be brought to Germany to provide a ready supply of sex workers for the influx of tourists and football fans.  This estimate is contradicted, or at least not supported, by a report provided by IOM (International Organization for Migration).  According to the IOM report, Research on Human Trafficking and the 2006 World Cup in Germany, “All data, information and experts’ statements that are available to date strongly indicate that an increase in human trafficking, during and after the World Cup did not occur (my emphasis).  It was concluded that the 40,000 estimate was unfounded and unrealistic.”  I don’t think this quote means that major international events like the World Cup don’t have any effect on human trafficking.  Rather, I think that it merely means that there were no statistics to indicate a particular increase in human trafficking in Germany immediately around the time of the World Cup, and that this is probably due to many reasons, including a well-documented, significant effort by Germany to combat and detect human trafficking in conjunction  with the Cup.  South Africa can learn from Germany’s example, but it will remain to be seen if the South African government has the resources and will to fight HT in 2010 as Germany did in 2006.

The Countertraffickers – William Finnegan

Stories are powerful. William Finnegan has written an article in the current issue of The New Yorker titled The Countertraffickers.  He tells of a modern-day Harriet Tubman in Moldova, the diminutive but powerful Stella Rotaru.  Ms. Rotaru gets calls from Moldovan victims of human trafficking from various parts of the world, including Dubai, and she helps them escape. 

Stories like this inspire me.  People like Ms. Rotaru remind me that the slavers are NOT going to win.  They just got a head start, and we’re catching up.