This week, over 6800 child laborers were rescued in the Philippines. They were exploited in a number of industries, from domestic service to commercial sex to selling drugs. But the vast majority -- over 4500 -- were being exploited on sugarcaneplantations. Filipino authorities say these kids are only a tiny fraction of the over 4 million estimated to be enslaved or exploited in labor in the Philippines, in part to sell cheaper sugar to the U.S.
Sugarcane plantations can be extremely dangerous for children, and many work brutally long days with no breaks and little to eat. They cannot go to school, thus ensuring the plantation owners whole generations of workers who have no options other than the plantation and feel increasingly trapped in their situation. They are often take away from their families and forced to live on the plantations. Some of the children are slaves -- trapped by debt or the threat of violence and unable to leave. Others have the freedom to leave, but nowhere to go and no other viable ways to feed themselves and their families. Either way, it's exploitation of children that allows plantations to churn out cheaper sugar.
So where is all this sugar harvested by these Filipino kids going? Well, at least 500,000 metric tons of it are going to the U.S. every year. In fact, earlier this year the U.S. agree to import more sugar from the Philippines than ever before. This was good news for Filipino Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA) head Rafael Coscolluela, who said in December 2008 that the Philippines is "in for hard times in the next two years and it’s time for belt tightening for the sugar sector.” He also said the Philippine sugar industry must “become more efficient to lower production cost.” I have to wonder if there is a connection between the "belt-tightening" measures the Filipino sugar industry put into place last year in order to sell more to the U.S. and the 4500 kids who were rescued from plantations several months later. How many plantation owners and operators cut costs by cutting the pay or food of children? How many cut costs by firing paid adult workers and enslaving children to take their places?
Filipino sugar is grown by exploited child laborers, and sold to U.S. markets. This isn't abuse taking place overseas and far away, it's abuse being packaged into a bag of sugar and sold in U.S. supermarkets. Maybe it's being sold in your supermarket. This is exactly why it's important to know where your products come from and ask pointed questions of companies and governments. You have a right to demand sugar produced without exploitation of children. And when you exercise that right? Well now that's sweet.
NGO launches Step UP campaign, a preventive program to curb problem among youth sector in province
By Ma. Ester L. Espina, Correspondent
Negros Occidental joins the list of provinces on the watch lists of groups working to fight human trafficking and worse, has become not just a source of persons being trafficked in various forms of human slavery, but as another “destination.”
Visayan Forum Foundation executive director, Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda said that their rescue and monitoring operation has indicated that the problem has now been categorized as the third-largest underground business and a $30-million industry.
“This is not anymore a simple migration problem but we have been seeing more and more of these trafficked victims sold and resold many times over,” she added.
She said several residents hailing from Negros Occidental and Bacolod City have fallen victims to human trafficking “many of them ending up in the prostitution trade.”
Oebanda, a native of Negros and was formerly a rebel commander at the height of the insurgency said many of those they have rescued and interviewed come from the CHICKS area in southern Negros and from Banago in Bacolod.
“Worse, and the local government should know this, the province is not only a hotspot for source of trafficked persons but has become a destination,” citing that they have monitored night entertainment centers whose workers are mostly from other regions in the Visayas, said Oebanda.
Oebanda was in Bacolod recently for the launching of the STEP UP project that will be implemented locally by the Negros Ecological and Development Foundation (NEDF) in cooperation with Microsoft as a “preventive program” against human trafficking.
STEP UP, which means Stop Trafficking and Exploitation of People through Unlimited Potential, provides information technology and life skills to potential victims of human trafficking.
NEDF executive director, Roseo Depra, said they have established a STEP UP Learning Center in Barangay Handumanan which she said has been also cited as one of the major areas in Bacolod where recruiters would operate in to entice young boys and girls with hopes of employment in Manila and abroad but “unfortunately they end up in prostitution dens.”
For their first batch of STEP UP scholars, NEDF screened and chose 20 out-of-school youth residents in the area who will undergo a three-month program, which includes matching employment after graduation. In the next three years, Depra said they hope to see more than a thousand youth gainfully employed and helping in the anti-human trafficking advocacy work.
She recounted the tale of a 14-year-old girl from Samar who was recruited for domestic work in Manila but ended up in a prostitution den where she found 100 more girls like her in the flesh trade.
Oebanda said that while their early years focused mostly on rescue operations and legal cases against “head-hunters,” they have shifted direction toward prevention through a community-based program.
She acknowledged that the problem stems from economics and the promise of money which is why more and more of the younger set fall into the trap.
“We need to create a counter-move against this culture of deception and we hope that through STEP UP, we will be able to prevent thousands of youth fall victim to human traffickers,” she added.
By Ashley Surdin Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, September 1, 2009
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31 -- Three Americans accused of traveling to Cambodia to have sex with children are expected to be charged in federal court here, officials said Monday, marking the first prosecutions under a new international initiative intended to combat child-sex tourism.
The initiative, Operation Twisted Traveler, targets Americans who exploit children for sex in Cambodia, which experts describe as a top destination for child predators. U.S. and Cambodian authorities, as well as nongovernmental organizations, were involved in the effort.
"This level of cooperation is unprecedented," said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which coordinated the initiative with the Justice Department.
Before arriving in Los Angeles on Monday, the suspects -- Ronald Boyajian, 49, Erik Peeters, 41, and Jack Sporich, 75 -- were arrested by Cambodian authorities on charges related to child sexual exploitation. They are expected to make their initial appearances in federal court Tuesday afternoon.
The three men are current or former California residents, and all are registered sex offenders, authorities said. An attorney for Boyajian did not respond to a call to comment. The other two men do not yet have attorneys.
Child-sex tourism -- whereby minors are sold for sex through brothels or solicited off the street -- has long been part of the landscape in Cambodia. Like most countries where the crime occurs, such as Thailand and Mexico, Cambodia is a poor nation, with a $600 annual per capita income, according to the World Bank. In desperation to pay for food or health care, some families sell their children to foreign pedophiles or sex houses.
It is difficult to know how pervasive child-sex tourism is in Cambodia, or in any other country, because of the illicit nature of the crime. Undercover investigators, working with human rights activists, continue to find many brothel owners and traffickers selling minors for sex in Cambodia.
There are increasing reports of men traveling there to have sex with underage girls for as much as $4,000, according to the State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report of 2009. The report designated the Southeast Asian country as among those that should receive special scrutiny because it has not made enough progress in eliminating the problem.
Cambodia has made some efforts. Over the past year, after enacting laws with anti-trafficking provisions, the government convicted a dozen offenders and prosecuted nearly 70. U.S. legislation, including the PROTECT Act of 2003, has also targeted trafficking. The legislation bolstered federal laws targeting predatory crimes against children outside the United States by expanding the range of crimes and increasing penalties.
Officials say Twisted Traveler, launched in October, will help enforce existing laws. Under the initiative, the FBI and ICE trained the Cambodian National Police and local police in Phnom Penh, the nation's capital.
"Some part of what we're trying to do here is change attitudes and change acceptance of child-sex tourism as something that's always been around or can't be changed," Carol A. Rodley, the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, said in a telephone interview. "And I think that's very much true of the Cambodian police -- that their attitudes about the issue have changed in part because of the collaboration."
Authorities in both countries relied on information provided by Action Pour Les Enfants, a nonprofit group, and the International Justice Mission, a human rights agency. Their involvement, Rodley said, marked a breakthrough for Cambodia, which historically has had an uneasy relationship with such organizations because of their criticism of the government.
In a statement announcing the latest allegations, officials said Boyajian, of Menlo Park, Calif., is accused of having sex with a 10-year-old Vietnamese girl. Peeters, of Norwalk, Calif., is accused of engaging in sexual activity with at least three underage Cambodian boys, paying them $5 to $10. Sporich, of Sedona, Ariz., is accused of sexually abusing at least one Cambodian boy, and of driving through city streets on his motorbike, dropping money as a way to attract children.
If convicted, the men face sentences of up to 30 years for each victim.
Officials said they hope the arrests will deter would-be sex tourists. Over the past six years, ICE has arrested more than 70 suspects nationwide on charges of child-sex tourism.
"The appeal of a place like this is that it's very far away, and pedophiles feel like they can come here and be anonymous and be outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement," Rodley said. "I hope the message that it sends is one of deterrence."
According to Anti-Slavery International, bonded labour - or debt bondage - is probably the least-known form of slavery and yet the most widely used method of enslaving people.
In 1972, Bangladesh ratified both ILO Convention No. 29 (1930), the Forced Labour Convention and ILO Convention No. 105 (1957), the Abolition of Forced Labour Convention.
The law prohibits forced or bonded labour and the Factories Act and Shops and Establishments Act provide for inspection mechanisms to strengthen laws against forced labour.
"Forced labour has been present in Bangladesh for centuries. After the liberation of Bangladesh, it changed its form and has taken the new face of various 'contracts' associated with loans taken by poor farmers from the usurers," Mohamad Abul Quasem, founder of the human rights related NGO Uddyam and member of the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society, said.
Human trafficking
Bangladesh prohibits trafficking in persons under the Repression of Women and Children Act of 2000 (amended in 2003); however, there is extensive trafficking in women and children, primarily to India, Pakistan, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and within the country, mainly for prostitution and in some instances for labour servitude.
The exact number of women and children trafficked is unknown.
In 2008, the government created a 12-member anti-trafficking investigative unit that complements the existing anti-trafficking police unit.
Last year, 231 victims of trafficking were rescued and 34 offenders convicted, of whom 26 were sentenced to life imprisonment.
In addition, Bangladeshi men and women migrating to the Middle East and elsewhere for work often face bonded labour as a result of fraud or illegal fees demanded by recruitment agents.
"It is regrettable how crooked recruitment agencies often lure young men to their doom with false promises of jobs. The victims are often unable to contact their loved ones and remain stranded in foreign lands without decent payment and [in] inhuman living conditions. This is the modern face of slavery," Motasim Billah, a manpower consultant, told IRIN.
An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream
By Patrick
Radden Keefe
Doubleday.
414 pp. $27.50
In the early morning hours of June 6, 1993, a small, weathered freighter, the Golden Venture, ran aground along the shoreline of New York's Rockaway Beach. It was carrying 300 people from China's Fujian province. Most were men, though there was also a handful of women and children aboard. It was in many ways an age-old journey: immigrants risking their lives for a better life. But this was different. Each had paid $35,000 to smugglers (the going rate is now upward of $70,000), and when the ship beached (purposefully, it turns out) those on board, who were already weakened by the 120-day voyage, were ordered by the smugglers to jump into the rough surf and swim ashore. The sea was so turbulent that it flipped a 22-foot Boston Whaler sent out to rescue the swimmers. Ten of the Chinese men died. The rest lay exhausted in the sand, tended to by medics, given food and water, and then arrested.
"For much of its history," Patrick Radden Keefe writes, "the United States has suffered from a kind of bipolarity when it comes to matters of immigration." And so it was that the men and women on the Golden Venture were not embraced but instead imprisoned, most of them in a jail in York, Pa., where they remained for three years while the government tried to figure out how it viewed them: as illegal immigrants or refugees -- or something in between. Indeed, the Golden Venture, which Keefe points out brought "the single largest arrival of illegal aliens in modern American history," came to symbolize the tightly wound tension that has long characterized this nation's stance on immigration: the instinct to take in the tired and the poor versus the oft-expressed inclination to return new arrivals to their home countries. "The Snakehead" evocatively captures our yin and yang over immigration policy. Even if you know where you stand, you'll get tossed about enough in this compelling narrative that you won't necessarily end up where you began.
The spine of "The Snakehead" is the account of Cheng Chui Ping, known to most as Sister Ping, an aloof if not eccentric woman who helped finance the Golden Venture. An immigrant herself from Fujian province, Sister Ping built and headed a global smuggling empire, an underground network that extended from Asia to Africa and Latin America, all stops along the way to the ultimate destination: the United States. Sister Ping made a small fortune trading in humans, which it becomes abundantly clear is a cutthroat, often brazenly violent business, measured not only by street shootouts between rival smugglers but also by the brutal nature of the travel itself, including the claustrophobic and odorous voyage in the small hold of the Golden Venture, which Keefe recounts in haunting detail. Food and water were so scarce that fights would break out. One of the smuggled Fujianese became so unhinged that he mindlessly pressed buttons on a handheld video game long after the batteries had died. Another passenger told Keefe, "I think it changed many people, being on that ship."
The ship also changed others, as well. When many of the Chinese were detained in a prison in the working-class town of York, some of the locals befriended the new captives and then took up their cause, arguing -- convincingly -- that they should be permitted to stay in this country. But beginning with the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and then reinforced by post-9/11 hysteria, our nation has become less welcoming to those seeking refuge. We now detain roughly 300,000 people, most of them accused of entering this country illegally, most of them awaiting deportation.
Yet, as Keefe suggests, it's ingrained in the history of this country that "many an immigration story begins with some transgression, large or small." Indeed, Sister Ping, who is now serving time in prison, has become a folk hero in her Chinatown neighborhood, or as Keefe observes, "a latter-day Harriet Tubman who risked imprisonment to shepherd her countrymen to freedom." This is one of the freshest accounts of modern-day migration I've read, one filled with moral ambiguity, one that doesn't pretend to have the answers, one that in these times feels like essential reading.
Alex Kotlowitz is the author of three books, including, most recently, "Never a City So Real." He teaches writing at Northwestern University.
In 2006 Shared Hope International received a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to perform field research on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking (DMST)—the sex trafficking of American children. The National Report is the culmination of ten field assessments conducted in targeted locations in the United States, providing a comprehensive understanding of child sex trafficking across America. This unprecedented report reveals the starling reality that American children are being recruited from our neighborhoods and sold on our streets!
The National Report found misidentification of victims to be the primary barrier to properly addressing America’s trafficked children. Consequently, this misidentification often leads to the criminalization of victims, barring them from receiving proper treatment and care. In fact, in nearly every location American child victims of sex trafficking are being arrested for the crime committed against them while their abusers walk free. In addition, the study found a severe lack of appropriate protective and therapeutic shelters. Finally, the National Report emphasizes that although buyers are a critical in addressing the issue of child sex trafficking, buyers most often escape criminalization.
Dili, 6 July, 2009 - On Wednesday, 2 July 2009 at 5pm United Nations Police (UNPOL) and the PolÃcia Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL) jointly carried out an anti-human trafficking operation at a bar in the Marconi neighborhood of Dili. Ten persons, including one woman, were arrested on the suspicion that they were part of a human trafficking ring.
Police also found 22 other women, between the ages of 17 and 29, working in the bar. One of them is a minor. They are currently being processed as victims of human trafficking, and are being cared for by the International Organization for Migration and non-governmental organisations.
The suspects are currently detained in the Becora Prison, awaiting pre-trial hearing. Preliminary investigations reveal that the suspects deceived the victims into travelling to Timor-Leste on the false expectation that they would be working legitimately as masseuses or waitresses. Upon entering Timor-Leste, they were forced to provide sexual services. Police are continuing investigations.
“The successful operation culminates from information received by the police and joint efforts between UNPOL and PNTL,” said Luis Carrilho, UN Police Commissioner. “It reflects the support the police enjoy from the community and the good relationship between UNPOL and PNTL.”
“The UN regards human trafficking as a form of serious exploitation and abuse,” said Commissioner Carrilho, “police will not hesitate to take action against human traffickers.”
Police urge any person with information regarding this case or other human-trafficking activities in Timor-Leste to contact the police through the 112 hotline.
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