Three Mexican Brothers Sentenced For Sex Trafficking

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Three Mexican Brothers Sentenced For Sex Trafficking

Defendants Trafficked Minor Girls and Women from Mexico and Forced Them to Work in Prostitution

Earlier today, in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, three brothers were sentenced to lengthy prison terms following their pleas of guilty to sex trafficking charges. Benito Lopez-Perez and Anastasio Romero-Perez were sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment to be followed by 5 years of supervised release, and Jose Gabino Barrientos-Perez, was sentenced to 10 years and one month of imprisonment, to be followed by 5 years of supervised release. The defendants, who are Mexican nationals, transported Mexican females from Mexico to the United States illegally, forcing them to work as prostitutes in New York City and elsewhere. The defendants were arrested in Mexico in October 2011 and extradited to the United States in December 2012. Today’s sentences are the latest in the Office’s comprehensive anti-trafficking program, which has to date indicted over 55 defendants in sex trafficking cases and rescued over 100 victims, including over 17 minors.

The sentences were announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and James T. Hayes, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), New York.

“The defendants preyed upon the young and vulnerable, abducting one of their victims at age 14, and forcing them into a life of sexual slavery in Mexico and the United States. Working together with our law enforcement partners at home and abroad, we stand firm in our resolve to vigorously investigate and prosecute those who would subject others to modern-day slavery,” stated United States Attorney Lynch. “These sex traffickers have now been held to account for the horror and violence that they inflicted on their victims. We hope that these sentences bring some measure of closure to the victims as they attempt to heal from the mental and physical abuse inflicted by the defendants.” Ms. Lynch thanked the Mexican authorities and other entities that assisted with the extradition and successful prosecution of this case.

“The individuals sentenced today exploited and enslaved women for personal profit while terrifying and traumatizing them through rape, violence, and intimidation,” stated HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Hayes. “No prison sentence can ever do justice for the pain and suffering experienced by these victims, but knowing that justice has been served on their tormentors will hopefully allow for the beginning of a healing process that these women so justly deserve.”

The sex trafficking involved at least four victims, and the defendants used various methods to force these women and girls to work in prostitution, ranging from abduction, rape, assault and threats of violence, to psychological coercion. One minor victim, identified in court papers as Jane Doe 1, was primarily trafficked by the defendant Benito Lopez-Perez. Jane Doe 1 met Lopez-Perez in 2005 in Mexico when she was 14 years old. After attending a movie with a group that included Lopez-Perez, he took Jane Doe 1 to his family home and raped her. Lopez-Perez then forced Jane Doe 1 into prostitution, first in Mexico and later, after arranging to smuggle her across the border, in the United States, where Jose Gabino Barrientos-Perez also participated in the victim’s sex trafficking. Jane Doe 1 was required to service 10 to 40 clients per day, on threat of physical abuse, and was kept under the defendants’ control for five years until she escaped in 2010.

At age 14, the victim identified as Jane Doe 2 met the defendant Romero-Perez while she was living with her sister (also a victim and identified in court papers as Jane Doe 3), who was married to Jose Gabino Barrientos-Perez. Jane Doe 2 began a romantic relationship with Romero-Perez, who subsequently persuaded the victim to work as a prostitute to pay off a debt. Romero-Perez brought Jane Doe 2 to a bar where she was closely monitored to ensure she kept none of the money she earned. When she refused to work, or did not earn enough money, Romero-Perez beat her. In approximately October 2008, Romero-Perez and Lopez-Perez arranged to smuggle Jane Doe 2 into the United States where she was forced to work as a prostitute in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, servicing approximately 12 to 15 clients per day. While she was in the United States, Romero-Perez raped and beat Jane Doe 2 on several occasions.

Jane Doe 3 was primarily trafficked by her husband, the defendant Jose Gabino Barrientos-Perez. Approximately one year after the birth of their son, Barrientos-Perez persuaded Jane Doe 3 to work as a prostitute, telling her he needed the money pay off debts and to provide for their baby. Barrientos-Perez brought Jane Doe 3 to Tijuana and Mexico City to work in prostitution, beating her on several occasions in order to force her to work. In 2006, Barrientos-Perez arranged to smuggle Jane Doe 3 into the United States and ultimately to New York City to work as a prostitute under the defendant’s threats of violence. Jane Doe 3 paid Barrientos-Perez approximately $700-$1,000 per week from her prostitution earnings – when she paid less, the defendant threatened that he would not let her see her children.

Jane Doe 4 was trafficked by the defendant Romero-Perez beginning at the age of 20, after she was pressured into a romantic relationship with him. After approximately three months of working as a prostitute in Mexico, Jane Doe 4 was smuggled into the United States. Romero-Perez promised his victim that they would get jobs and have an apartment together, but after they arrived, Romero-Perez told her that she needed to prostitute herself to support them. Like the other victims, Jane Doe 4 gave the majority of the prostitution proceeds to Romero-Perez and his family members.

Since 2009, the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security have collaborated with Mexican law enforcement counterparts in the Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), the Secretaría de Seguridad Pública (SSP), Procuraduría Social de Atención a las Víctimas de Delitos (PROVICTIMA), and non-governmental partners in the United States and Mexico in a Bilateral Human Trafficking Enforcement Initiative. Through this Initiative, the United States and Mexico have worked together to bring high-impact prosecutions under both U.S. and Mexican law to more effectively dismantle human trafficking networks operating across the U.S.-Mexico border, prosecute human traffickers, rescue human trafficking victims, and reunite victims with their families. Other significant bilateral cases have been prosecuted in Atlanta, Georgia, and Miami, Florida.

United States Attorney Lynch extended her grateful appreciation to the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs for its assistance in obtaining the extraditions of the defendants, and the New York City Police Department for its longstanding partnership in the Office’s coordinated anti-trafficking program. Ms. Lynch also thanked the many victim service providers and advocates for their dedicated efforts to restore and improve the lives of survivors of trafficking, in particular, Safe Horizon; Sanctuary for Families; Restore NYC; LifeWay Network; the New York City Bar Justice Center; The Legal Aid Society, Civil Division (Bronx); My Sister’s Place; the Mt. Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program; Bellevue Hospital Center, and the law firms of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.

The sentences were imposed by Chief United States District Judge Carol B. Amon.

The government’s case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Taryn A. Merkl, Elizabeth Geddes, and Erik Paulsen.

The Defendants:

Name: BENITO LOPEZ-PEREZ

Age: 35

Name: ANASTASIO ROMERO-PEREZ

Age: 40

Name: JOSE GABINO BARRIENTOS-PEREZ

Age: 52


E.D.N.Y. Docket No. CR-11-199 (CBA)

11 Facts About Human Trafficking

• Globally, the average cost of a slave is $90.
• Trafficking primarily involves exploitation which comes in many forms, including:
• Forcing victims into prostitution
• Subjecting victims to slavery or involuntary servitude
• Compelling victims to commit sex acts for the purpose of creating pornography
• Misleading victims into debt bondage
• According to some estimates, approximately 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation, and 19% involves labor exploitation.
• There are approximately 20 to 30 million slaves in the world today.
• According to the U.S. State Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. More than 70 percent are female and half are children.
• The average age a teen enters the sex trade in the U.S. is 12 to 14-year-old. Many victims are runaway girls who were sexually abused as children.
• California harbors 3 of the FBI’s 13 highest child sex trafficking areas on the nation: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego.
• The National Human Trafficking Hotline receives more calls from Texas than any other state in the US. 15 percent of those calls are from the Dallas- Fort Worth area.
• Between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. each year.
• Human trafficking is the third largest international crime industry (behind illegal drugs and arms trafficking).
• It reportedly generates a profit of $32 billion every year. Of that number, $15.5 billion is made in industrialized countries.
• The International Labour Organization estimates that women and girls represent the largest share of forced labor victims with 11.4 million trafficked victims (55 percent) compared to 9.5 million (45 percent) men.

The Day My God Died

An unforgettable look at young girls in Bombay whose lives are shattered by the child sex trade.

Independent voices. Global connections. New perspectives

Fighting child trafficking in Nepal

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Fighting child trafficking in Nepal

May 2011: Thousands of children and women are trafficked from Nepal to India each year for sexual exploitation. Watch this film to see how Plan-supported vigilance committees are taking action at the border posts to intercept and support suspected trafficking victims.

Nearly 600 vigilance committees - comprising women, children and police officers - have been set up in Nepal to increase awareness, prevent future trafficking as well take direct action to help those affected.

Hundreds rescued

In 2009 alone, more than 230 women and children were rescued by these committees and taken to a shelter run by Plan's partner organisations.

Find out more about Plan's work in Nepal.

Learn about Plan's global work on child protection.

Child Trafficking in America...

Community vigilance: 10 steps people can take to help combat human trafficking

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Editor’s Note: Trafficking expert Siddharth Kara is a Harvard fellow and author of the award-winning book, "Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery." For more than 15 years, he has traveled around the world to research modern-day slavery, interviewing thousands of former and current slaves. Kara also advises the United Nations and governments on anti-slavery research and policy.

Whenever I talk on human trafficking, I am almost always asked what people can do to help.

To be sure, the forces that promote human trafficking are immense -– from extreme poverty, to corruption, lawlessness, population displacement, gender and minority bias, economic globalization and others. In the face of such vast and complex forces, everyday citizens can feel powerless to make a real difference.

Nevertheless, there are vital steps that individuals can take to help bring an end to human trafficking and other forms of contemporary slavery.

Beyond increasing your knowledge of the issue, perhaps the most important way individuals can contribute is to form a system of human trafficking vigilance committees in their communities.

It may sound daunting, but here are a few simple steps to get started.

1. Learn about the many signs  that indicate a person may be a victim of human trafficking or some other form of forced labor.

2. Assemble a core group of individuals who will set up and manage your Community Vigilance Committee (CVC).

3. Recruit other community members to join your CVC, such as neighbors and local business owners. Make a plan that suits everyone on how and when you can meet to discuss your efforts.

4. Make contact with local law enforcement, especially a local human trafficking police unit if you have one, to set up a system of reporting to a point person should any member of your CVC witness a sign of human trafficking. Follow the guidance of local law enforcement on the best ways you can assist them.

5. Make contact with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that focus on human trafficking (especially shelters), to discuss your plans and set up a system of referral should you need to pass along information about a potential human trafficking victim in your area. Follow the guidance of these NGOs on how you can be most effective in assisting them.

6. If there are no relevant NGOs or shelters in your area, think about setting one up!

7. Create a website in which you share your progress and learnings, so that you can coordinate with other CVCs to expand your reach, and also learn from each other about how to be more effective.

8. Set up a “Google Alert” for human trafficking. This will help you stay on top of trends and developments in the field.

9. Make contact with your local and state lawmakers to learn more about what they are doing to combat human trafficking in your area. If you feel they are not doing enough, try to persuade them to do more.

10. Should any member of your CVC see something worrying from the list of signs of human trafficking - do not intervene in any way individually or as a group. Meet and discuss what you have seen and report to local law enforcement as soon as possible.

If you follow these 10 steps, you will be well on your way towards making a considerable contribution in the fight against human trafficking.

As dedicated as law enforcement, NGOs, and local governments may be, they cannot be everywhere at all times. It is up to individual citizens to expand the “eyes and ears” of traditional anti-trafficking actors by taking ownership of their communities and being as informed and vigilant as possible.

Countless human trafficking victims have been freed, and numerous cases have been prosecuted thanks to the efforts of Good Samaritans who noticed something was amiss, and reported to police what they saw.

Today’s global anti-trafficking movement will benefit mightily from community vigilance efforts, which serve as vital initiatives individuals can undertake to help in the fight against human trafficking, one community at a time.

The opinions expressed in this guest blog post are solely those of Siddharth Kara.

Florida mom sold baby to buy car, police charge

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Florida mom sold baby to buy car, police charge

MIAMI - A Florida woman was charged with trying to sell her infant son in order to pay for a new car, police said on Tuesday.
The baby's grandmother brokered the deal and initially demanded $75,000 but agreed to cut the price to $30,000 when told the prospective buyer could not get a bank loan, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) said.
The mother of the eight-week-old boy, Stephanie Bigbee Fleming, 22, of Bradenton, Florida, was to receive $9,000 of the proceeds, the FDLE said.
"Fleming planned to purchase a new vehicle from the money received," an FDLE spokeswoman said.
Fleming also needed money to pay court costs for an unrelated probation violation, the arrest documents said.
Fleming was arrested on Tuesday. The grandmother, Patty Bigbee, 45, was arrested last week with her boyfriend Lawrence Works, 42, both of Holly Hill, Florida. All three were charged with the illegal sale of a child, and Bigbee was also charged with communications fraud, the department said.
The arrest report said Bigbee offered to sell the baby to a female relative in October, explaining she had been caring for her grandchild but "was not mother material."
The relative alerted police and worked with them during the negotiations. Bigbee and Works were arrested when they collected a $30,000 cashier's check and handed over the baby to an undercover agent in a Daytona Beach parking lot, police said.
The baby remains in state custody.

Sri Lanka declares 'final victory'

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Sri Lanka declares 'final victory'

Sri Lanka's army says it has ended its war with the Tamil Tigers after killing 250 separatist fighters, including the group's leader, his son and three senior officials.

Lieutenant-General Sarath Fonseka, the head of the Sri Lankan army, said in a statement on Monday that troops had overrun the last sliver of territory held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"Over 250 dead bodies of terrorists are scattered over the last ditch," he said.

"All military operations have come to a stop. Now the entire country is declared rid of terrorism."

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the Sri Lankan military spokesman, told Al Jazeera:  "The capability of the LTTE [is] now being completely destroyed."

Tiger leader killed

Earlier, military sources said the body of Velupillai Prabhakan, the leader and founder of the LTTE, often called the Tamil Tigers, was found in an ambulance destroyed by troops as it sped out of the war zone.

Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, said that reports on how Prabhakan died remained unclear.

"There are stories that the army fired an RPG at a vehicle carrying Prabhakaran and two other senior leaders and there are reports that he was shot while fleeing."

If he is confirmed to have been killed it would "spell the end of the organisation that has been built almost around the cult Prabhakaran", she said.

"It is a surprise that it has fallen and literally brought to its knees and been defeated this quickly."

Leaders found dead

The news came hours after the military said it had found the bodies of four other senior Tamil Tigers, including Prabhakaran's 24-year-old son Charles Anthony.

The senior LTTE officials found dead include Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the political wing, Seevaratnam Puleedevan, and S Ramesh, the separatists' eastern leader, said Nanayakkara.

A spokesman for Mahinda Rajapakse, the Sri Lankan president, said a formal announcement on Prabhakan's death would be made at 6pm (12:30 GMT).

The defence ministry said troops also killed Prabhakaran's deputies - Soosai, the leader of the Sea Tigers, and Pottu Amman, the LTTE's intelligence chief.

There has been no comment from the LTTE on the claims.
Winning the peace

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley said: "The conventional guerrilla fighting forces of the Tamil Tigers is probably now finished.

"Depending on what happens in the peace process, the fear is that this may develop into guerrilla war again ... but what about the peace? There are not many left to talk to.
"A lot of mistrust has developed over the years; I think that's the reason why this conflict began. Now it's a problem that both sides have to make themselves understood."

The military had refused to accept a ceasefire from the Tamil Tigers, which had offered to lay down its arms on Sunday, declaring that its 26-year battle with the government had come to a "bitter end".

The army, having declared victory on Saturday, described Monday's activities as "mopping up" operations.

Keheliya Rambukwella, a defence ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the government had "had enough of ceasefires" and that any cessation of hostilities would happen only if it protected civilians.

"As usual, they [Tamil Tigers] are going to strengthen and rearm themselves," he said.

The government maintains that the tens of thousands of civilians who had been trapped in the small area of conflict in the northeast of the country had finally been able to leave on Sunday.

'Conflict not resolved'

Far from the battlefield, thousands of Sri Lankans hugged soldiers, waved flags, set off firecrackers and danced to the beat of traditional drums in the streets of the capital, Colombo, celebrating the end of more than 25 years of conflict.

Erik Solheim, a Norwegian minister and former negotiator in the conflict, warned on Sunday that "peace is long from being won".
"The Sri Lankan authorities must demonstrate generosity towards the Tamil population and grant Tamils autonomy and create a state that includes everyone," Solheim, who is Norway's international development and environment minister, said.

Norway helped broker a ceasefire in February 2002, which came to an end in October 2006 when peace negotiations broke down.

Selvarajah Pathmanathan, the Tigers' spokesman, said bodies of thousands of wounded and slain civilians remain in the war zone.

The Sri Lankan ministry of disaster management had said it was continuing to process civilians rescued from the fighting and being held in camps for the internally displaced.

The government and the Tigers alike have been criticised for not allowing civilians to leave the conflict zone.

'Struggle to continue'

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict that started in 1983 and the UN says 6,000 were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in just the last four months.

The Tamil Tigers once controlled nearly a fifth of the Indian ocean island nation, running a shadow state that had courts, police and a tax system along with an army, navy and even nascent air force.

However, the struggle for a homeland for ethnic Tamils who say they are marginalised by the ruling majority Sinhalese government will continue, Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance, told Al Jazeera.

"The Tamil struggle started long before the Tigers were born and will continue after the end of the Tigers."

The parents are told that their child will receive wages, but these are usually taken by the trafficker.

All for profit

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Ex plain ing Child Malnutrition in Developing

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Fight against child trafficking

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Media Role: The Positive Approach

Display of professionalism, courage and a humane attitude while reporting on human trafficking

Boston Hotels Help Bust Major Child Prostitution Ring

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Boston Hotels Help Bust Major Child Prostitution Ring

Recently, law enforcement agents, courageous survivors, and prosecutors came together to bring down one of the largest child prostitution rings in the country. But they couldn't have done it without the help of local hotels which were used by pimps to sell and store their "products." It's a case that shows hotels can be heroes in preventing and reporting child prostitution.

Jessica was a student at a local Boston high school when she first met Darryl Tavares, the man who would become her pimp. She had run away from home days before and was standing in the snow in skimpy clothes. Tavares convinced her that if she let him be her pimp, she'd never have to be outside in the cold. He failed to mention that he'd also cut her with a potato peeler to mark her as his property, kick her face with his work boots for disobeying, and keep the money she earned from having sex with men in hotel rooms around Boston. But that is what happened to Jessica and the many other girls as young as 13 in a violent child sex trafficking ring in Boston.

After years of abuse, Jessica had enough. She tried to leave her pimp, but he sent several women to find her and they attacked her brutally. So Jessica turned to the police for help and eventually became the first informant for what would be a massive FBI investigation into child prostitution in Boston. In the end, they arrested six pimps, two of whom are awaiting sentencing. Despite the fact that she has deep physical and emotional scars from her time in slavery, Jessica is now a college student. She's studying to be a social worker to help girls who find themselves in the same situation she did -- alone in the snow, making a choice between the home they hate and a smiling wolf offering a warm meal and a place to sleep.

Too often, victims like Jessica never get justice, because the information in a case comes down to her word against the pimp's. The victim is often very young, traumatized, confused, and may have lied to the police in the past. Pimps are usually older, self-possessed, and can afford a good lawyer.  That's why evidence is so critical in cases like Jessica's.

Jessica and the other girls trafficked with her were sold at area hotels around Boston. And while no one is releasing the names of those hotels, a local radio station has speculated that they included some high-end properties where wealthy business travelers would stay. But part of the reason Jessica and the other girls were able to find justice was that the hotels released their records to the FBI, corroborating the girls' stories. Without those hotels, police might not have been able to prove Tavares and his colleagues had been running a child prostitution ring. Without those hotels, six pimps could still be out on the streets of Boston, luring young girls out of the snow.

Hotels can be heroes in the prevention and reporting of child prostitution and sex trafficking. One excellent tool for them is the Code of Conduct, which gives travel and tourism industry companies a rubric and resources for fighting child sex trafficking. And while many European and Asian companies have signed the Code, few American companies have. Ask Hilton to sign the Code of Conduct and become a leader in the fight against child prostitution.

28 Roma Children Rescued in London Police Raids

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28 Roma Children Rescued in London Police Raids

British police took more than two dozen Roma children as young as 3 into protection Tuesday after raiding houses in London as part of a joint child trafficking investigation with Romanian authorities.

Officers raided 16 properties in east London in an operation "to safeguard potential victims of a Romanian-based Roma gang of child traffickers," police said.

The 28 children would be assessed by child protection experts, police said. Seven adults were arrested, including three on suspicion of assault and child neglect.

The raids were part of Operation Golf, a joint British-Romanian police operation against people traffickers from Romania's Roma, or Gypsy, community.

"These children are exploited by gangs and in some cases their own parents," who paid criminals to bring the youngsters to Britain to earn money, Chief Inspector Colin Carswell of Operation Golf said.

The police force said 26 people were arrested in Romania in April in connection with the investigation and were facing charges of child trafficking, organized crime and money laundering.

The arrests come as European authorities struggle to find solutions to the complex issues facing Europe's poorest minority.

European Union Social Affairs Commissioner Laszlo Andor said Tuesday that it was unacceptable that Roma have "the same hopes and dreams" as other European citizens but not the same opportunities."

He called on member states to address employment, education and health issues for Europe's 10 million to 12 million Roma.

In August, French authorities began expelling hundreds of Roma back to their home countries. The French government said illegal Roma camps on the outskirts of towns were hubs for child exploitation and prostitution, but the expulsions were condemned by human rights groups and European Union officials.

Romania is one of the poorest members of the EU, which it joined in 2007, and up to 2 million Romanians have left their country in recent years in search of better jobs.

Police believe some were lured by false promises of legitimate employment and found themselves in forced labor and forced prostitution.

Associated Press Writer Alina Wolfe Murray in Bucharest, Romania, contributed to this report.

The Trafficking of children and young people

Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children, commonly referred to as the “Palermo Protocol”


 Child Trafficking

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Anti-child trafficking projects: Seven criteria to define 'good practice'

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Anti-child trafficking projects: Seven criteria to define 'good practice'

Mike Dottridge, you are launching today your last report In pursuit of good practice in responses to child trafficking and you are describing the different experiences from Latin America, Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia. What are the main findings of the report?

Mike Dottridge: "I think there are three things to mention in particular. The first is a rather sideways interest in the way that the media reports about children who are trafficked have such a major impact and sometimes really distort what’s happening… Sometimes end up doing more damage than good, particularly when newspapers have published photographs of children that have been trafficked or revealed details about where they come from and so on… So a lot of bad side effects from media reports.

In Southeast Europe, the project led by Terre des hommes introduced a special system for analyzing particularly newspaper reports about children who have been trafficked. A sort of grading system that looks very specifically at the structure of newspaper articles, finding a way of measuring how objective they are, particularly looking whether photographs were used, how children were represented, whether the comments made by children themselves were taken into account. It’s really at the international level I would say that’s a real first. So that’s been something very interesting to see and of course then to follow up by trying to influence journalists and finding as usual that journalists are pleased to improve the quality of their reporting but the editors, the newspapers owners and so on are much more difficult to influence.

A second really important impact of this recent project has concerned some guidelines which were published already seven years ago by Unicef. This a set of guidelines for the protection of the rights of child victims of trafficking which were produced especially in Southeast Europe originally, which were hailed as very important but which in many countries were then put on a shelve and left. The last three years has seen, in the three countries involved in this project, efforts very much to take those Guidelines off the shelf and to take them to social workers or other people that are frontline workers in contact with children who have been trafficked, so that the standards for assisting and protecting those children are raised and they are genuinely protected, because unfortunately again in the past there have been ways used of trying to help children that have been so poor that they have actually done more harm than good.

The third aspect of this project I think it’s worth mentioning is that we had to look very hard at what is ‘good practice’ in an anti-child trafficking initiative. And we were not only looking at Southeast Europe but also in parts of Latin America and parts of Southeast Asia… So there really had to be some criteria that made sense at an international level. We came up with seven criteria – I won’t go into all the details – but it amounts to a sort of score card. I think that’s something that we have been lacking in the past; a lot of people have talked about good practice in ways of protecting children, and sometimes that’s used so loosely as to just imply that everything ‘my’ organization does is good and others aren’t quite as good.

Now we’ve tried to introduce a quite objective scoring system: have we understood why a particular method was successful or unsuccessful? Is it replicable? And if so what are the conditions in which it could be replicated in a different country or a different setting? And then very specifically what are its effects not only on the children who were supposed to benefit but on others close to them? Have we been able to check the side effects, the adverse effects? And that was the biggest challenge, that’s the thing is the most difficult to really do.

So those are just three aspects of what I think has been a very interesting experience both in Southeast Europe and the two other regions affected by this three-year project."

What are the main recommendations of the report?

Mike Dottridge: "Well, the report ends with ten recommendations, some of them addressed to quite a wide audience of specialist organizations which design or finance initiatives to stop young people being trafficked. Some of them are more specific to Terre des hommes and its partners.

The very general one is a recommendation that says it is vital before any initiative to either prevent child trafficking or to assist children who have been trafficked, it is vital to collect information about the general patterns of child trafficking, child exploitation and abuse in the area concerned. Because those specifics are really important to inform any new initiatives. And one of the mistakes we have seen in some other areas outside of the framework of this project is well intentioned people going in and talking about child trafficking when they have failed to identify what is happening under their noses.

A second very general one is, in the context of protecting and assisting children who have already been trafficked, what we could see is a very specific experience in Philippines in East Asia, that children who have been trafficked were consulted there in quite a formal way when the Guidelines on the protection of the rights of children who have been trafficked were being adapted to the Philippines. That was very important out the principle, but also because definitively the guidelines became more useful for trafficked children once the views of some of them have been taken into account.

And then finally the very general level, it was a specific recommendation for Terre des hommes, but actually it applies to all of the organizations who are working in this field of child trafficking. It is important to develop appropriate methods for detecting both adverse effects and other unplanned side effects of activities to stop child trafficking, whether they are specifically experienced by children or by others in their communities. It’s clear to me that most initiatives are very positive, but sometimes where focusing too narrowly and not seeing that for example we are tarring some members of the community unjustifiably with an accusation of child trafficking or child abuse or something of that sort. And it is really important to take stock of those adverse effects of some anti trafficking projects."

And more generally, as specialized on child trafficking for the past ten years, how do you see this phenomenon evolving?

Mike Dottridge: "A huge amount has been talked about on the issue of human trafficking in general, child trafficking in particular, a lot of money invested and it is quite difficult to see the tangible, practical results in some areas. At the international level, some bad things have been done, some lessons have now been learnt, so that’s positive. In some regions, there is a better understanding of what’s happening, thanks mainly to research often by non-governmental organizations, rather than thanks to police work. Because in some areas organizations were muddling cases of child trafficking and other situations in which children migrate to work. So there is a little bit more clarity.

In Europe there is still a remarkable level of confusion both about what cases constitute trafficking – particularly when children should be indentified as victims of trafficking – and how to tackle the problem. One reason that could be an ongoing confusion is because not nearly enough attention was being given to protecting children that were trafficked. So although Unicef drew up guidelines already six years ago, those are absent in every country in the European Union, even in most of the Council of Europe’s countries, in terms of practice. So there are some signs of improvement now thanks to a convention adopted by the Council of Europe back in 2005, which is now in force, which has put much more emphasis on the importance of protecting people who have been trafficked so that they are not re-trafficked, so that they are able to look after themselves again and restart their lives in a proper setting.

But, as I say, still a lot of confusion, we are still seeing for example children from Roma minorities particularly coming form Southeast Europe who are meeting a whole range of different policy responses in different countries in Western Europe. And I do rather scratch my head and wonder why, in a Europe which is supposed to be joined up and supposed to have a lot of coordination from Brussels and other places, why there seems to be such uncoordinated response… They are signs, I am happy to say that it’s improving, but, my goodness, the improvements have been infinitely slower than we all expected six or seven years ago."

Child trafficking charge: warrant issued against former DIG, his wife

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Child trafficking charge: warrant issued against former DIG, his wife

DHAKA: A special tribunal Thursday issued arrest warrant against former DIG Anisur Rahman and his wife in a much-talked-about child-trafficking case.

Special Tribunal for Prevention of Women and Children Repression passed the order after hearing of witness. 

But Anisur Rahman and his wife Anwara Rahman remained fugitive at present.

Fourth Tribunal for Prevention of Women and Children Repression took the hearing of the last witness Waliul Islam and fixed the date of hearing on October 19 as accused Anis and his wife prayed for time who were physically absent from the court.

Earlier, the court sent the witness back regarding the prayer of seeking time of the accused.

According to the case filed in 2006, reports were published in different newspapers about the former DIG couple living in a house with 14 children and seven of them appeared to be of the same age between 18 and 24 months. 

The couple claimed that they were the parents of the children and the seven were septuplet. 

Advocate Alena Khan, Executive Director of the Bangladesh Society for Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR), filed a complaint under Women and Children Repression Prevention Act with Badda police station accusing Anisur Rahman and his wife for children trafficking.

Humayan Kabir, Detective Branch of Police, submitted the final report before the court on December 10, 2006 and prayed for discharging the accused from the case.

But accuser Alena Khan filed the petition with the tribunal against the report of investigation officer.

According to the case, Mariam Najifa died under treatment and other six children are under the care of Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association (BNWLA), at its shelter home named Proshanti at Agargaon in the capital.

“It took four years for the hearing of only two witnesses and in the meantime a child died on November 16,” said Alena Khan to Banglanews.

Fayetteville church raises child trafficking awareness

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Fayetteville church raises child trafficking awareness

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Members of a Fayetteville church came together Sunday to help stop child trafficking.

The congregation of Manna Church, at 5117 Cliffdale Road, organized a 5K walk to raise awareness and money for the organization "Stop Child Trafficking Now."

Organizers said not enough resources are being used to stop child trafficking.

“An average trafficker, with a child, can make $200,000 a year on one child, and there's just no law enforcement set up to protect them. We have got a huge army after drugs but tiny, tiny little efforts after child trafficking,” said Michael Fletcher, pastor of Manna Church.

Organizers of the Fayetteville walk said the Shaniya Davis case has focused attention on the issue of child trafficking.

The 5-year-old girl was reported missing from her Fayetteville home on Nov. 10. Her body was found in a patch of kudzu off a rural road near the Lee-Harnett County line six days later.

Mario Andrette McNeill, 29, has been charged with first-degree murder, first-degree rape of a child and first-degree kidnapping in Shaniya's death. Police have characterized him as a family acquaintance.

An autopsy determined that Shaniya died of asphyxiation and that injuries she suffered were consistent with a sexual assault.

Shaniya's mother, Antoinette Nicole Davis, 25, has been charged with human trafficking, felony child abuse–prostitution, filing a false police report and obstructing a police investigation. Arrest warrants state that Davis "did knowingly provide Shaniya with the intent that she be held in sexual servitude" and "did permit an act of prostitution with Shaniya."

Winning Battles in the Fight to End Child Trafficking, By Cassandra Clifford

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Winning Battles in the Fight to End Child Trafficking, By Cassandra Clifford

When people tell you that ‘you can literally buy anything online’, they are not kidding! The policing of such activities is has always been difficult for the authorities, but many question the sites themselves for even allowing services of such a sexual nature to even be advertised, thus opening the door for a multitude of illegal activities, including the sale of children for sex.  The internet has become one of, if not the largest, hub for the solicitation and purchase of minors for sex.  Child victims of sex trafficking are sold on a multitude of sites such as MySpace, Facebook, and Craigslist, and the battle to see these sites are unable to facilitate the trafficking of persons has been, and continues to remain, a series of uphill battles.  However after continuous campaigning and pressure from across the country battles are begging to be won.

The biggest, and most public, battle has been that against online classified giant, Craigslist.  Please see my previous post Selling Children Online for more on the lengthy history to see the sight bans its adult services section, which has been notoriously used as an instrument for traffickers/pimps and Johns alike.

On September 15, 2010 both anti-trafficking experts and a representative from Craigslist testified before the U.S. Congress on domestic child sex trafficking.  The Congressional hearing was focused around the Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking Victims Support Act, which if passed, it would provide critical resources such as shelter, law enforcement training, and rehabilitative services for the estimated 100,000 child victims of sex trafficking in the United States.   Those working to protect domestic victims of sex trafficking are pushing hard to see the act is passed to help fill the large gap in funding, as the U.S. currently spends more on human trafficking abroad than domestically.  Additionally within the U.S. foreign victims of trafficking are forded more support than than that of their domestic counterparts.

Craigslist had been silent since they blocked the sites controversial “adult services” section less than two week prior (CNN).  However the silence was broken by Clint Powell, Director of Customer Service and Law Enforcement Relations for Craigslist, at the hearing as he stated that the adult services sections of the site are permanently gone from the U.S.  To some the battle is large and long over due to others it is just a small step, as the companies additional 250 country sites continue to operate adult services sections.  If you missed the hearing you can see full coverage on C-Span.

The recent hearing is far from the end of child sex trafficking on the Internet, and only the beginning in many ways.  Craigslist may have been the main site in the spotlight, but they are not alone and as the demand for commercial sex and child sex trafficking continues, the statement; “when one door closes another opens” is sadly to be the case in this ongoing fight.  One such sight which has come into the spotlight is Backpage.com a site similar to Craigslist.  The Village Voice Media, which owns Backpage.com, has recently been drawn into the spotlight as a Missouri girl has recently filled suit against the company over sex ads (AP).

Another long overdue victory in the fight against sex trafficking has been won over one of the country’s leading newspapers, The Washington Post. After considerable outcry and campaigning the Post will no longer run massage parlor ads, often fronts for brothels. Stuart C. McKeel, a top official in The Post’s advertising department, stated in a note; “It has become clear to us that our existing standards needed to evolve,” it added. “We have therefore decided not to accept such advertisements going forward.” (Washington Post).  Please see the following post in the DC Human Rights Examiner, I ran last year to learn more about the history of the long fight to end such ads.

The issue is clear, women and children have been sold on the site’s like Craigslist and in the Washington Post for sex and they enabled it!  While these two success stories, both long overdue and after years of considerable outcry, are a great lead that allows us to be much closer to winning the battle against sex trafficking, it is in part only the beginning and we must see that other sights such as Backpage.com end such egregious practices, as well as address the issue of demand.

Emphasis On Education Key To Alleviating Child Trafficking In Cambodia

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Emphasis On Education Key To Alleviating Child Trafficking In Cambodia

Source: The Global Playground News dated 11 March.

Last January, Global Playground had the opportunity to visit the Sao Sary Foundation (“SSF”), located an hour’s drive outside of Cambodia’s capitol city of Phnom Penh. SSF was founded in 2006 to “help improve the living standard of the poorest of the poor and vulnerable families . . . and to develop support for the education of orphans and other vulnerable children.” The ultimate goal of SSF is to ensure that vulnerable children are kept safe from all forms of violence, exploitation, and abuse, especially child trafficking. This was also the lifelong goal of the foundation’s namesake, Sao Sary, deputy chief of Takeo province in Kus commune, who was gunned down after intervening in a robbery.

SSF runs a house where students live so they can attend school, develop skills, and generally be in a safer environment than they might otherwise be in their own homes. Children at SSF are considered those particularly susceptible to being trafficked, such as those who have been trafficked before, who live well below the poverty line, or who come from single-parent households or families with physical disabilities and low earning potential. In addition, the beauty of a child and lack of access to education also make a child a likely target for trafficking.

To contribute to their keep and to support SSF, the girls who live at SSF spend hours on end making hundreds of elaborate flowers fashioned out of metal rods and colorful nylon, which are then sold at market for use in weddings or other ceremonies. But not all of the organization’s work is at the home itself–much of what the organization does extends into the community. Global Playground saw SSF’s outreach efforts firsthand when it toured the Cambodian countryside and visited with several of the families that SSF is helping. One family consisted of a single mother and her daughter who were living in a dilapidated structure, but because the home had no walls the daughter was in constant danger of abduction and trafficking given her beauty. SSF is rebuilding the home. In other cases, SSF teaches families how to run a business and provides them with startup capital to do so. For example, SSF taught one mother whom Global Playground visited how to raise fish and grow rice and morning glories (a marketable vegetable in Cambodia) so that she could keep her family out of poverty and her daughters safe.

Global Playground visited SSF to better understand the import of bolstering education in Cambodia. Board member Doug Smith stated, “Part of the reason Global Playground is operating in Cambodia is because there is child trafficking and education is a means to alleviate it.” Although SSF’s goal is not education alone, Global Playground does see education as the ultimate preventative measure. “If kids are in school and gaining education to allow them to enter jobs successfully and earn decent income, then trafficking is not as serious of a risk,” said board member Doug Bunch.

During its visit, Global Playground purchased the entire inventory of the girls’ nylon flowers and will sell them at Global Playground’s March 27 event in Washington, DC at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

-Jennifer Rinker

To read the profile of one of the families SSF is helping and to view pictures from Global Playground’s visit with the family click here.