Posts filed under ‘Articles’
THE Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has installed Document Fraud Readers, scanners and other passenger registration equipment at the various international airports to check human trafficking.
NIS Comptroller-General, Mrs Rose Uzoma, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Abuja that the equipment would also check movement of people in and out of the country.
“At the international airports, we have taken necessary steps to install Information Technology (IT) equipment, the Document Fraud Readers and the Scanners. We have installed the Passenger Registration Equipment that enables us take stock of whoever is leaving or coming into this country.
February 28, 2011 at 3:29 pm
By Chris Foresman | Last updated a day ago
Just months after shuttering access to the “adult services” category on its US classified sites, Craigslist has removed adult services from all 700 of its international sites. Wired noted the global shutdown on Tuesday, and it was confirmed by Craigslist to Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday.
Craigslist has had a sordid past with its attempts to offer legitimate listings for “adult services,” which first appeared as “erotic services.” State attorneys general hammered Craigslist over listings in the category, which they claimed amounted to enabling prostitution. Craigslist began voluntary measures to try and stem illegal activity, including requiring those creating listings to submit a verifiable phone number and use a credit card to pay a listing fee.
Amid growing pressure from state AGs, however, Craigslist shut down erotic services and started a new “adult services” category for “legal adult service providers.” The new category was actively monitored by moderators and carried a $10 per listing fee.
That still wasn’t enough, however. Those making listings for illegal acts merely changed tactics, posting listings under adult services that were vague enough to get past moderators, or moving listings to other categories like “casual encounters.”
State AGs were not pleased. “[L]ittle has been done to eliminate ads which tout prostitution and, shockingly, ads trafficking children. The company must take immediate action to stop the victimization of women and children,” Kansas attorney general Steve Six said in August. Craigslist then relented, shutting off adult services categories on all its US-based sites in September.
Craigslist did not comment on why it had decided to remove adult services listings from all its global sites. Regardless, Blumenthal applauded the move, saying it was a “victory” against the exploitation of women and children. “This move is another important step in the ongoing fight to more effectively screen and stop pernicious prostitution ads,” he told Associated Press.
It looks like the change isn’t having the effect that Blumenthal et al were hoping for, though. MSNBC noted that many listings have merely migrated to the un-moderated “therapeutic services.”
“Young Thai boy for a sensual massage” read one such ad in Paris, while another in Thailand bragged you could “undress” a masseuse offering a “5 Star Massage.”
Copyright to http://arstechnica.com/
December 24, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Douglas signs bill against human trafficking
The Associated Press
MONTPELIER – Gov. James Douglas has signed into law a bill cracking down on human trafficking in Vermont.Supporters of the bill say Vermont was one of only five states in the United States and alone in the Northeast in not having a law targeting trafficking in human beings.
The Coalition of Vermonters Against Slavery Today calls it a worldwide problem that does not bypass Vermont. They say people caught up in trafficking often are taken far from home and used in forced labor and prostitution.
The bill Douglas signed at the Statehouse in Montpelier today, sets up a task force to study the issue and recommend ways Vermont law enforcement can improve its enforcement against crimes involving human trafficking.
Associated press
April 27, 2010 at 9:42 pm
If you want to know how you can help combat human trafficking, contact
http://www.polarisproject.org/
Continue Reading January 29, 2010 at 3:34 am
U.S. President Barack Obama has proclaimed January 2010 to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month and called for greater public awareness of the problem.
An estimated 27 million people worldwide are trapped as victims of human trafficking, according to Not for Sale (http://www.notforsalecampaign.org), an anti-slavery advocacy group. The black market slave trade is lucrative, worth an estimated $9 billion a year, according to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“We must join together as a nation and global community to provide . . . safe haven by protecting victims and prosecuting traffickers,” Obama said in the official proclamation, so that “the men, women, and children who have suffered this scourge can overcome the bonds of modern slavery, receive protection and justice, and successfully reclaim their rightful independence.”
Traders often target impoverished, poorly educated individuals from the developing world looking for work or a safer place to call home. Once tricked with promises of safe passage, provision of work, help with visas or easy money, trafficking victims are placed in jobs with long hours, little or no pay, no health care and harsh working conditions. Many face emotional and physical abuse on a regular basis.
Rights groups, security agencies and governments have been working for decades to eradicate human trafficking. But most of it takes place under the table, through unofficial channels, in a murky, multifaceted underworld difficult to penetrate.
Copyright of Author Juliette Terzieff
World Politics Review Blog
January 21, 2010 at 3:07 pm
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — State attorneys general from Missouri, Illinois and Connecticut plan to begin negotiations with Craigslist to eliminate what they contend are advertisements for illegal sexual activities.
The three attorneys general will represent a group of the nation’s attorneys general Tuesday at a meeting in New York City with officials from the Internet classified ad service.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, said that investigators in his office have found several ads offering sex-for-money or seeking that type of relationship on Craigslist Web sites for the Kansas City, St. Louis, Springfield, Columbia and Jefferson City areas.
“It is blatant. It is irresponsible. It is illegal,” Koster said Monday in a written statement.
A spokeswoman for Craigslist did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday.
The negotiations come amid national attention to online ads because a Boston medical student has been accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist.
Phillip Markoff was arrested last month and charged with the April 14 killing of Julissa Brisman, 25, of New York, who advertised on Craigslist.
On Monday, Markoff was charged in Rhode Island with assault and weapons violations. An exotic dancer from Las Vegas told police that she was held at gunpoint by a man met through Craigslist. The dancer said the man fled when her husband came to the Rhode Island hotel room.
Markoff also been charged in a separate robbery in Boston of a masseuse that police contend Markoff met through Craigslist.
Craigslist also made headlines in October 2007 when a 24-year-old Minnesota woman was found dead after responding to a phony ad for a baby sitter.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
May 5, 2009 at 2:21 pm
It is imperative that we do not forget that there is a correlation between domestic abuse and human trafficking.
Continue Reading April 16, 2009 at 6:27 pm
August 23, 2008
Editorial – The New York Times
Taking On the Traffickers
The Federal Trafficking and Victims Protection Act of 2000 was an ambitious attempt to rescue women and children who are smuggled into the country as sex slaves and to step up prosecution of the pimps and traffickers who drive this ghastly business. It has fallen short on both counts.
The law is now up for reauthorization, and Congress must strengthen it and extend protections and services to victims born in the United States.
The legislation provides federal funds to local trafficking task forces made up of prosecutors, law enforcement officials and social service groups. The social service groups are supposed to help identify victims and then provide them with the guidance and support they need to rebuild their lives.
According to federal estimates as many as 17,000 people most of them women and children are brought into this country and forced to work in brutal and inhumane conditions, often as prostitutes. The 42 federally funded task forces that have been set up have only been able to identify a small fraction of those victims.
There are many reasons for this. Traffickers are experts at moving people around without being detected. They also train the women they exploit to fear the police. The task forces are often understaffed, with too few investigators to do the job effectively. That needs to change if the country is going to get at this problem.
Prosecutors are also having a hard time making cases against traffickers and pimps. Even victims who are not too terrified to testify, must meet a very difficult standard. They must prove that they did not consent to become prostitutes and did so because of “force, fraud or coercion.”
The House reauthorization would help prosecutions by adding the Mann Act’s somewhat easier-to-prove standards that calls for prosecution of pimps who “persuade, induce, entice” women into prostitution. The Senate should add that language as well.
The social service groups that help prostitutes on the streets have zeroed in on another serious shortcoming: the government’s failure to protect and support sexually exploited women and children born in this country. The House reauthorization requires the Justice Department to conduct a study of domestic victims so that there is at least an understanding of the scale of the problem. That would be a start but is not enough.
Congress was right to take on the problem of sexual trafficking. Now it needs to pass a more effective law; one that will provide real protection and help for all exploited women and children.
September 2, 2008 at 10:34 pm
NYC LAWYERS AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING 