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U.N.: 2.4 million human trafficking victims

Posted 4/3/2012 9:00 PM | Updated 4/4/2012 6:14 AM

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The U.N. crime-fighting office said Tuesday that 2.4 million people across the globe are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves.

Yuri Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told a daylong General Assembly meeting on trafficking that 17 percent are trafficked to perform forced labor, including in homes and sweat shops.

He said $32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks, and two out of every three victims are women.

Fighting these criminals "is a challenge of extraordinary proportions," Fedotov said.

"At any one time, 2.4 million people suffer the misery of this humiliating and degrading crime," he said.

According to Fedotov's Vienna-based office, only one out of 100 victims of trafficking is ever rescued.

Fedotov called for coordinated local, regional and international responses that balance "progressive and proactive law enforcement" with actions that combat "the market forces driving human trafficking in many destination countries."

Michelle Bachelet, who heads the new U.N. agency promoting women's rights and gender equality called UN Women, said "it's difficult to think of a crime more hideous and shocking than human trafficking. Yet, it is one of the fastest growing and lucrative crimes."

Actress Mira Sorvino, the U.N. goodwill ambassador against human trafficking, told the meeting that "modern day slavery is bested only by the illegal drug trade for profitability," but very little money and political will is being spent to combat trafficking.

"Transnational organized crime groups are adding humans to their product lists," she said. "Satellites reveal the same routes moving them as arms and drugs."

Sorvino said there is a lack of strong legislation and police training to combat trafficking. Even in the United States "only 10 percent of police stations have any protocol to deal with trafficking," she said.

M. Cherif Bassiouni, an emeritus law professor at DePaul University in Chicago, said to applause that "there is no human rights subject on which governments have said so much but done so little."

Laws in most of the world criminalize prostitutes and other victims of trafficking but almost never criminalize the perpetrators "without whom that crime could not be performed," he said.

Bassiouni said the figure of 2.4 million people trafficked at any time is not reflective of the overall problem because "at the end of 10 years you will have a significantly larger number who have gone through the experience."

He urged a global reassessment of "who is a victim and who is a criminal" and called for criminalizing not only those on the demand side using trafficked women, children and men, but all those in the chain of supplying trafficking victims.

In addition, Bassiouni said, "we must change attitudes of male-dominated police departments throughout the world who place this type of a crime at the lowest level of their law enforcement priorities."

General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged donors to contribute to a new trust fund aimed at helping victims of human trafficking.

At the start of the meeting, Fedotov said the U.N. Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking had pledges of around $1 million but just $47,000 in contributions, and he urged those who offered money to send their checks.

At the end of the meeting, Al-Nasser announced three new pledges — $200,000 from Australia, $30,000 from Russia, and 30,000 Euros from Luxembourg — and encouraged other U.N. member states to follow their example.

South Africa: Human Trafficking Rife in the U.S. - Prof

By Kate Gerber, 11 April 2012

The USA's implementation of their human trafficking policy was slammed by a Stanford University professor speaking in Cape Town yesterday.

Speaking at the University of Cape Town, Helen Stacy, professor of the Human Rights Law program at Stanford, described how human trafficking has become another arm of the global drugs and weapon trade and is far more brutal than the public imagined.

"You can sell a drug once, a gun once, but you can sell a person over and over again," said Stacy.

She said human traffickers in the US supplied immigrant workers, adoption fraud, organ harvesting, marriage brokerage and the sex trade.

There were an estimated 300 million trafficked people worldwide but figures were tenuous as they were based on what is reported by victims, and many victims were too afraid to speak out, she said to the small audience in attendance.

She said the US has a visa system in place for victims of human trafficking. A 'T' visa allows them to stay in the US for three years on the proviso that the victim testifies against their trafficker. Only 150 of a possible 500,000 such visas were issued each year as it was complicated and difficult for victims to apply for this visa. The prosecution rate is small as it is focused on victims giving individual testimony that concentrates on the individual perpetrators rather than breaking the web of human trafficking ultimately responsible for crimes against them.

"Of our 50 states, 43 treat trafficking as a felony, 20 have trafficking policy in place, eight have declared prostitution legal in licensed brothels, six have laws which govern marriage brokerage and five have travel brokers. It's a patchwork quilt, there is no blanket regulation," said Stacy.

"Even those states of ours who do have policy regarding human trafficking find that their regulations are highly under constructed. There is no understanding of a woman's choice or place. She is either an angel or a whore.

"Governments hate regulating male access to sex. They prefer instead, to regulate female sexuality. Their focus is on the regulation of the supply side and not the demand side."

Stacy believes that Barack Obama is likely to see another term as President but had unfortunately not fulfilled his elective promises of better healthcare, better education and the shutdown of Guantanamo Bay amongst others, so she believes those undertakings would be his primary focus rather than combating human trafficking.

"But a President can only last for two terms so I am hoping we will see Senator Clinton in the White House after him. I believe that she will tackle the issues we are talking about here - Women's Rights, Trafficking and Migration. Until then, I hope we will see a youth driven grass roots movement exposing these issues for what they are. Kids take things viral these days and their focus is now on human trafficking."

Discussion Questions

1. How do you think the legacy of slavery in this country affects American perceptions of modern-day slavery?

2. Who are victims of human trafficking?

3. Why might law enforcement and the community as a whole not be aware of this crime?

4. What are some of the reasons victims may be reluctant to try to escape or report the crime?

5. Why might the male-dominated law enforcement agencies not have human trafficking as a top priority?

6. Which issues related to trafficking do you think are most pressing in your community?

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