Super Bowl Trafficking in Persons

"When it came time for the Super Bowl, Clemmie Greenlee was expected to sleep with anywhere from 25 to 50 men a day. It’s a staggering figure, but it doesn’t shock advocates who say that the sporting event attracts more traffickers than any other in the U.S." (Huffington Post, 2013) Then today I saw an article at Huffington Post claiming that an increase in Super Bowl prostitution was a myth. But the articles are still coming.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/02/05/pre-super-bowl-arrests-made-in-south-bay-prostitution-human

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Human Trafficking Task Force says the business of selling sex is up in the weeks and days leading up to the Super Bowl.“The ads have increased, both with the females in the prostitution and the males looking for prostitutes,” said Jensen. Last week, a prostitution sting at four massage parlors in Santa Cruz led to four arrests.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-trying-new-approach-to-crack-down-on-super-bowl-sex-trafficking/


http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/14720095/the-scope-human-trafficking-continues-grow-awareness

Donations for personal hygiene

We took about $50 of groceries to the Thanksgiving service at UALC on Thursday (nicest church service of the year with the best hymns).  But I kept aside a bag of personal care items I’ve been buying—shampoo, sanitary napkins, deodorant, bar soap, toothpaste, tooth brushes, liquid hand soap. These are for Tammy Jewell’s ministry, “God’s Hygiene Help Center,” which offers basic hygiene care to people who have lost their dignity because they simply can’t afford everyday items.  Some are for children, some for out of work men and women looking for jobs, some for the elderly and homeless.

Jewell is a former victim of human trafficking who came to know Jesus. Now she reaches out to addicts and trafficking victims.  When she shares Jesus, she also offers some small material aid.

From UALC.org Cornerstone, Nov. 22-26, 2015

C.A.T.C.H. Court and Judge Paul M. Herbert

October 31 I attended a presentation at UALC Mill Run campus on the C.A.T.C.H court of Franklin County, Ohio, which is a diversion program offering women victimized by human trafficking the chance to leave lives of trauma, homelessness, substance abuse and incarceration. It was started in 2009 by Judge Paul M. Herbert, a Christian, who had a personal experience with a woman in his court room that was like that of the disgraced woman in Luke’s account of the woman who bathed Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  He told us the most important word in the Bible is “SEE.”

He told us that prostitution isn’t the glamorous, self selected life of “Pretty woman” the Julia Roberts film where women are exchanging sex for money.  He showed footage of severe physical abuse. We heard about branding with tattoos, pimps being “married” to all his girls, new identities, traumatic brain injuries, broken bones and rape.  That’s NOT sex for hire. . . it’s slavery.  One third of the prostitutes were in the field before age 15, and now average age is 12-13; 62% are before their 18th birthday.  Ohio passed a Statute of Human Trafficking, June, 27, 2012—every human trafficking victim is also a prostitute—victim and criminal. 92% of those arrested for prostitution also fit the definition of human trafficking.

The C.A.T.C.H. program graduates have a very high rate of success. We also heard from a graduate of the program, Vanessa Perkins who today is employed by the very court system that previously tried and convicted her and has completed 5 years of sobriety with no new offenses.  She serves on the Board of Freedom a la Cart.  Story here.

This video is very similar to the presentation I heard this morning.

https://vimeo.com/106539001

Thank you Suzanne Tyack who brought this program to UALC.

Internet safety for teens

Keep children away from predators by sharing.

More women becoming ring leaders in slave trade

“There are more than 27 million slaves worldwide, according to the United Nations, generating an estimated $32 billion in profits, most of which are earned on the backs of young women, yet more and more case findings are uncovering women as ringleaders and operators of trafficking syndicates,” says Sharon Buchbinder.

 
http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/08/07/when-women-are-found-trafficking-other-women.html

• A Saudi Arabian princess charged in Los Angeles: Meshael Alayban faces one felony count of human trafficking after being accused of holding a domestic servant against her will at her condominium in Irvine, Calif. Alayban is one of the wives of Saudi Prince Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al Saud. A female servant, originally from Kenya, escaped and flagged down a bus, after which she told her story to local police. The woman says she was promised weekends off and a good wage but was forced to work 16-hour days, seven days a week and was paid only $220 a month. Alayban faces a maximum sentence of 12 years if convicted. She is being held in the Orange County jail in lieu of $5 million bail.

• United Nations study shows females traffic more sex workers than men in developing countries: Using data from 155 countries, the UN’s first international report attempting to calculate the scope, nature and patterns of human trafficking found a disproportionately high number of female perpetrators selling other women into slavery. The report uncovered an alarming trend: women who were once victims of the sex trade often develop into ringleaders of the illegal, underground sex industry. Researchers cite money, poverty and a skewed psychological perspective for possible reasons for this phenomenon.

• Woman recently sentenced to more than seven years in a federal prison for trafficking a 16-year-old in three different states: Jessica Loren Posey was sentenced earlier this year to serve time for transporting a juvenile girl to Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio for the purpose of prostitution. According to a U.S. attorney, Posey met the girl at a party and coerced her to engage in sex for money. Posey, 25, marketed the girl using uploaded pictures on various pornographic websites, and she arranged meetings at hotel rooms, driving the girl there.

In 2000 the Dutch legalized prostitution

“Twelve years on, and we can now see the results of this experiment. Rather than afford better protection for the women, it has simply increased the market. Rather than confine the brothels to a discrete (and avoidable) part of the city, the sex industry has spilt out all over Amsterdam — including on-street. Rather than be given rights in the ‘workplace’, the prostitutes have found the pimps are as brutal as ever. The government-funded union set up to protect them has been shunned by the vast majority of prostitutes, who remain too scared to complain.

Pimps, under legalisation, have been reclassified as managers and businessmen. Abuse suffered by the women is now called an ‘occupational hazard’, like a stone dropped on a builder’s toe. Sex tourism has grown faster in Amsterdam than the regular type of tourism: as the city became the brothel of Europe, women have been imported by traffickers from Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia to meet the demand. In other words, the pimps remained but became legit — violence was still prevalent but part of the job, and trafficking increased. Support for the women to leave prostitution became almost nonexistent. The innate murkiness of the job has not been washed away by legal benediction.”

Sin has a way of doing that—makes the bad worse.

You can cross Holland off the cruise list.

Trafficking in persons, United States, 2008-2010

Data from the Human Trafficking Reporting System (HTRS)

Most confirmed human trafficking suspects were male (81%), while 19% were female. Based on cases in which race was known, nearly two-thirds (62%) of confirmed sex trafficking suspects were identified as black. Confirmed labor trafficking suspects were more likely to be identified as Hispanic (48%). Most suspects in confirmed sex trafficking incidents were between the ages of 18 and 34 (77%) and were U.S. citizens (86%).

About 8 in 10 of the suspected incidents of human trafficking were classified as sex trafficking, and about 1 in 10 incidents were classified as labor trafficking. Federal agencies were more likely to lead labor trafficking investigations (29%) than sex trafficking investigations (7%).

For more information, check the report, April 2011

The Real History of Slavery by Thomas Sowell

The following is a partial review of Thomas Sowell’s book, “Black Rednecks and White Liberals,” and appeared in the October 2005 issue of Freeman, a libertarian publication. Review is by Richard M. Ebeling.  I don’t know how successful this book was—seems to be a compilation of his columns which appeared in newspapers—and I don’t know if there were revisions.  It would be good to review the history of slavery, especially since in modern times, we now know it is a larger enterprise in the 21st century than it was in the 18th century because of selling sex, and cheap labor.  And just as Arabs sold black Africans to the Europeans from raids in the interior of Africa, so Muslims today are capturing and selling slaves in Africa and Asia.  So his conclusion (the reviewer, I assume) that ending it in the British Empire closed that chapter isn’t accurate.

“A related theme that Sowell discusses in a chapter on “The Real History of Slavery” is that the institution of human bondage is far older than the experience of black enslavement in colonial and then independent America. Indeed, slavery has burdened the human race during all of recorded history and everywhere around the globe. Its origins and practice have had nothing to do with race or racism. Ancient Greeks enslaved other Greeks; Romans enslaved other Europeans; Asians enslaved Asians; and Africans enslaved Africans, just as the Aztecs enslaved other native groups in what we now call Mexico and Central America. Among the most prominent slave traders and slave owners up to our own time have been Arabs, who enslaved Europeans, black Africans, and Asians. In fact, while officially banned, it is an open secret that such slavery still exists in a number of Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East.

Equally ignored, Sowell reminds us, is that it was only in the West that slavery was challenged on philosophical and political grounds, and that antislavery efforts became a mass movement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Slavery was first ended in the European countries, and then Western pressure in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought about its demise in most of the rest of the world. But this fact has been downplayed because it does not fit into the politically correct fashions of our time. It is significant that in 1984, on the 150th anniversary of the ending of slavery in the British Empire, there was virtually no celebration of what was a historically profound turning point in bringing this terrible institution to a close around the world.’

President George W. Bush, $50 million to fight human trafficking (slavery), Sept. 23, 2003, before the U.N.

There's another humanitarian crisis spreading, yet hidden from view. Each year, an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are bought, sold or forced across the world's borders. Among them are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, and others as young as five, who fall victim to the sex trade. This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year -- much of which is used to finance organized crime.

There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life -- an underground of brutality and lonely fear. Those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished. Those who patronize this industry debase themselves and deepen the misery of others. And governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery.

This problem has appeared in my own country, and we are working to stop it. The PROTECT Act, which I signed into law this year, makes it a crime for any person to enter the United States, or for any citizen to travel abroad, for the purpose of sex tourism involving children. The Department of Justice is actively investigating sex tour operators and patrons, who can face up to 30 years in prison. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the United States is using sanctions against governments to discourage human trafficking.

The victims of this industry also need help from members of the United Nations. And this begins with clear standards and the certainty of punishment under laws of every country. Today, some nations make it a crime to sexually abuse children abroad. Such conduct should be a crime in all nations. Governments should inform travelers of the harm this industry does, and the severe punishments that will fall on its patrons. The American government is committing $50 million [I think this was domestic; another site reported $295 million internationally] to support the good work of organizations that are rescuing women and children from exploitation, and giving them shelter and medical treatment and the hope of a new life. I urge other governments to do their part.

We must show new energy in fighting back an old evil. Nearly two centuries after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after slavery was officially ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time.

--------------

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) (Public Law 106-386) was first enacted in October 2000, reauthorized in 2003, and President Barack Obama proclaimed January National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. But you'll see a shift, gradually, to emphasizing labor and other types of human rights abusesinstead of saving sex workers and children from a life of slavery. Notice the word order in Obama's speech: "Human trafficking is a global travesty that takes many forms. Whether forced labor or sexual trafficking, child soldiering or involuntary domestic servitude, these abuses are an affront to our national conscience, and to our values as Americans and human beings."

At Homeland Security, it's called The Blue Campaign, don't know why. Sounds a bit political, sort of like distributing blue t-shirts at the Tucson memorial for murdered citizens. Lots of PR, pamphlets and cards.

Because feminists write on this issue, they generally hated President Bush despite what he did for women, their examination of the 2000 Human trafficking act, the 2003 Operation Predator and PROTECT act, and their enforcement are generally seen as a failure. Link. However, if you read through these link, both the problem and the progress is amazing.

A global crime we really can do something about

As you know if you read this blog, I’m not a true believer in “Human Induced Climate Change.” In fact, I think much of HICC aka Global Warming is just so much hooey and pantheistic drivel which is intended to bring down capitalism and destroy a Judeo-Christian ethic. Currently, every hurricane, tsunami, tornado or blizzard gets thrown in the mix. I’m sitting here where a glacier passed through not too many thousands of years ago, on land that used to be covered by Lake Erie, and let me tell you, I thank God it warmed up! However, there are some global scourges we can do something about, and slavery is one of them.

From Books and Culture:

“Human trafficking is the fastest-growing global crime. The US State Department reports that 800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year. And the total profits of these horrendous crimes are second only to the trafficking of drugs.

How can this be? And more importantly, how can we help?

This eye-opening and challenging book, Stop the Traffik explores trafficking stories that are both horribly familiar and uncomfortably close to home. Authors Steve Chalke and Cherie Blair trace the scale of these terrible crimes and show us what ordinary people can do to Stop the Traffik—and change the world.”

You might have to give up chocolate! Certifying that chocolate is slave-free could make it quite expensive. You might even have to step out of and break the chain that ridicules and sexualizes children--like the network that pays David Letterman.

"TRAFFICKING IS...
to be deceived or taken against your will, bought, sold and transported into slavery for sexual exploitation, sweat shops, child brides, circuses, sacrificial worship, forced begging, sale of human organs, farm labour, domestic servitude."

Cindy Hefner leaves Playboy

The photo I saw in the paper showed her in a business suit. Yes, although the women who work for her don't wear clothes, she does. Interesting that when you're head of a flesh for sale media giant that exploits both women and men, you get to appear in public fully clothed. Maybe it's the salary; maybe it's the brains; or maybe she's smarter than old dad (photos of him usually show him in pajamas or a robe)? Disagree if you wish, but it's been proven over and over that pornography and the exploitation of women are links of the chains that run through trafficking in humans, i.e., slavery, much of it for sex, an industry much larger in the 21st century than it was in the 17th and 18th. Ms. Hefner said she would like to engage in public service after she retires in January--maybe some non-profit work or serving on a corporate board. I have some ideas how she might expiate some of her sins:

• http://www.theirc.org/what/irc_antitrafficking_initiative.html


• http://www.notforsalecampaign.org/


• http://www.prostitutionresearch.com/


• http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2006/index.htm


• http://www.stopthetraffik.org/language.aspx


• http://www.freetheslaves.net/Page.aspx?pid=183&srcid=-2


• Red-Light Rescue