Posts filed under ‘U.S. News’
Human Traffickers operating in the Mid-South
A four-month investigation by the local human rights group Operation Broken Silence found most of the activity centers on sex, and much of it starts online.
“Before Craigslist had a lot of pressure placed on them, a lot of the ads were on Craigslist,” said Ryan Dalton of Operation Broken Silence. “They have since moved to Backpage.”
Backpage.com is a web site where you can buy just about anything.
“Someone can log on to the web site and browse like they would for anything – a new car, a lawn mower, but they can also search for people,” Dalton said.
According to Operation Broken Silence, during the last quarter of 2010, more than 1,900 ads posted on Backpage listed women for sale in the Memphis and Tunica region. The ads were for things like “Busty and Thick”, “Sweet Treat”, and “Super Sexy Irish Doll.”
According to this research, Sam Cooper Highway, Memphis International Airport and the Wolfchase Mall area. People aren’t sold in these places – they’re just pick-up points. Researchers say the Wolfchase shopping area is appealing to human traffickers because it’s close to the interstate and there are lot of people with money in their pockets there.
Operation Broken Silence says Memphis International Airport is a hot spot to buy humans because of how many businessmen are traveling alone, and because it’s close to strip clubs. The FBI says sex slaves are brought in from all over the Mid-South and around the world.
Attorneys General in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi joined 18 other states in asking Backpage.com to close its adult services section back in September. But it’s still open, and busier than ever, though users must agree to report suspected exploitation of minors and human trafficking to the appropriate authorities.
The FBI would not comment on the research conducted by Operation Broken Silence specifically, but they have seen the study.
Read more:
•Operation Broken Silence: http://www.operationbrokensilence.org/
For the full article:
http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14156211
Foundation Tells Texas to Raise the Bar in Human Trafficking Laws
Shared Hope International a organization working in combating human trafficking did an evaluation of different states, grading them on the efforts and progress made in preventing sex trafficking. The founder former U.S. Congresswoman Linda Smith gave Texas a “C”. The event yesterday, sponsored by Traffick911 in Mansfield was organized to bring awareness to the issue of Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking.
Hopefully, with events and organizations like Shared Hope International and Traffick911 progress will be made in rescuing and preventing Texas youth from being bought and sold.
Joy Brooks of Fort Worth Human Trafficking Examiner
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Foundation Tells Texas to Raise the Bar In Human Trafficking Laws – Fort Worth Human Trafficking | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/human-trafficking-in-fort-worth/foundation-tells-texas-to-raise-the-bar-concerning-human-trafficking#ixzz1FMYt0EW2
Craigslist shuts down “adult services” worldwide
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/
23 arrested in human trafficking bust in NYC
New York (CNN) — Federal officers on Thursday arrested 23 people suspected of smuggling up to 70 men from China to work in Chinese restaurants in and around New York City.
“We allege that this was a for-profit smuggling scheme,” said Jim Hayes, Immigration and Custom Enforcement special agent in charge of the investigation.
He told CNN that the men were brought into the United States by business owners and illegal recruiters, who would get families to pay a fee of up to $75,000 each.
“The employment agency would arrange for them to be brought into the United States and the restaurant owners would harbor them and transport them after engaging the employment agency to get the type of worker they desired,” he said.
None of the illegal workers was arrested, Hayes said.
“Were working through that group of people to determine who were knowing participants, who may have been exploited, who may have desired to leave and weren’t allowed to leave,” he said.
The investigation found instances in which workers were paid as little as $3 an hour and were forced to live in sub-par living conditions in Connecticut, New Jersey and on New York’s Long Island, he said.
“Many of these aliens were housed in squalid conditions and unsanitary conditions, certainly conditions they were not desiring to live in.” he said.
The ongoing eight-month investigation is part of a new initiative by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to target employers of illegal aliens rather than the workers.
“It’s different in that we are looking to eliminate the magnet that draws the workers as opposed to focusing on the employees themselves,” Hayes said.
The status of the workers remains uncertain. Some will be witnesses, which could lead to benefits for them, and some may face deportation. All of them, according to Hayes, did not get what they came to the United States for.
“They believed they were coming over for the American Dream, but the fact of the matter is, whether their families paid it or not, that $75,000 is not something they are going to be able to pay off in their natural lifetime,” he said.
“It’s certainly much, much less than they bargained for.”
Dept. of Homeland Security launches new campaign to combat human trafficking
A special 24-hour phone number to report human trafficking is available at the site, along with, the opportunity to sign up for the Daily Human Trafficking and Smuggling Report.
What’s unique about the Blue Campaign is that it’s not just to educate the public.
The Blue Campaign also features new training initiatives for law enforcement and DHS personnel, enhanced victim assistance efforts, and the creation of new partnerships and interagency collaboration–including the deployment of additional victim assistance specialists and specialized training for law enforcement personnel.
Click Link
President Obama Issues Proclamation for 2010
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
Rhode Island attracts sex traffickers, say experts
Journal Medical Writer
PROVIDENCE –– When most people think of slavery these days, “they think of the Civil War,” says Shanna Wells, director of the Rhode Island Commission on Women.
But in fact, said Wells, slavery is occurring now in neighborhoods around Rhode Island, in the form of the forced prostitution of women and girls — some runaways, some brought here from other countries. Their captors are attracted to Rhode Island, she said, because it is one of only two states that consider prostitution legal, as long as it occurs indoors between consenting adults.
“The word has gone out that Rhode Island is the place to come to to open your brothel,” said Donna M. Hughes, a University of Rhode Island professor who has studied international sex trafficking. “We are rapidly becoming the sex trafficking capital of the Northeast.”
Melanie Shapiro, spokeswoman for the Rhode Island Coalition Against Human Trafficking, said that not long ago Rhode Island had a handful of brothels, and today there are 28.
Yesterday, a couple of dozen people gathered at the Grace Church to discuss the issue and then marched through the streets to call for action.
Wells said that efforts to toughen Rhode Island’s prostitution laws haven’t gotten much traction because legislators are not hearing about it from their constituents. So the coalition’s first task — and the purpose of yesterday’s march — was to raise awareness so that citizens will demand change.
According to Hughes, Rhode Island is among only three states where there have been no federal prosecutions for sex trafficking. “We need to ask the U.S. Attorney why,” she said. Similarly, the state has not made use of its own law intended to stop trafficking, and she called on Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch to explain why.
But the criminal justice system must not arrest victims or put the burden on victims to prove that they were coerced, Hughes cautioned. When prosecutions have required women to testify against powerful, brutal men, the cases tend to fall apart because the women “crack and have a meltdown on the witness stand.”
“Stop treating the victims as criminals,” she said. “Arresting them will not solve the problem.”
Instead, the anti-trafficking effort can learn from the fight against domestic violence, once considered a personal, private matter. Advocates pushed for laws requiring the police to determine who is the victim and arrest the abuser.
Paraphrasing a quote that is often attributed to the 18th-century British philosopher Edmund Burke, Shapiro said, “Evil requires only that good people do nothing. … Let’s get out there. Let’s do something about this.”
The Providence Journal
Sex Trafficking of Women in the United States
International and Domestic Trends
March 2001
Coaltion Against Trafficking in Women
NYC LAWYERS AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING 