Spotlight June 2006

Israeli-Canadian Women Trafficking Ring Busted. [Canada] The police have busted an international women trafficking ring between Israel and Canada. Details of the ring were released by police Tuesday morning, with the arrest of three suspects in the case. The suspects are a couple from Ariel, aged 40 and 26, and a 40-year-old Lod resident. A few months ago, Tel Aviv police detectives noticed ads in Russian newspapers in Israel offering work for women. The ads said that the work was in escort services in Canada, and offered USD 10,000 a month. Police began investigating the individuals behind the ads, and found that women from the former Soviet Union arrived at the offices, often with an Israeli passport. When they arrived, they were met by "initiators," who carried out humiliating tests on them, photographed them naked from every angle, and then sent the pictures to Canada. After a period of time, the Canada-based members of the ring sent answers to the Israeli branch of the network. When a positive answer was received, ring members organized documents, and if needed, passports, and sent the woman to Canada .

Belize Not Doing Enough to Stop Human Trafficking. [Belize] Belize has been black listed by the U.S. State Department as one of the countries that is not doing enough to crack down on human trafficking. The largest Caribbean island Cuba, is among the countries along with Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar, Iran, Laos, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe. The piece says “Cuba is a source country for women and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced child labour and the island is a major destination for sex tourism.” Speaking with the media on Wednesday Prime Minister Said Musa questions the irony of Belize being on the list of smuggling nations along side Venezuela when only a few weeks ago Belize received a $25M loan from the same country. The Embassy’s Political Officer Brian DaRin, cautions that Belize’s rank as tier 3 has absolutely nothing to do with its relationship with any other country. “It’s solely about the action or in this case inaction of the government to crack down on human trafficking.” He adds, the Belize Immigration Department is tasked with releasing an annual report on trafficking in Belize and it should have been in December however, it was not done.

Women's Groups Target Forced Prostitution at World Cup. [Germany] Fearing that the World Cup football would draw a lot of sex workers, women in Germany are taking a stand against forced prostitution at the tournament by setting up emergency hotlines, blowing whistles, and donning condom suits. The World Cup begins Friday and lasts one month. Women from Eastern Europe are expected to flock to Germany to provide services to the three million visitors anticipated to attend football's biggest event. It is unclear how many women from Eastern Europe are being lured into Germany with bogus promises. So far, police have no evidence that large numbers of them are being trafficked across the border. Nevertheless, citizens' initiatives, churches, politicians and footballers are all urging that prostitutes be treated properly. Some critics abroad have branded Germany as a 'cesspool of sin'.

Protests Mount over World Cup Sex Slaves. [Germany] The international campaign against sex-slave trafficking in Germany at the World Cup is gaining momentum online, where one group has generated a petition with 20,000 signatures of protesters outraged at the practice, and other non-governmental organizations are offering aid for the exploited young women. Last week U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the fight against the forced sex trade the "great moral calling of our time," as young women, kidnapped or lured with false job offers from Ukraine, Hungary and Poland are forced to perform sex acts for pay against their will. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., long known for his pro-life stance, held a hearing last week in which he noted that the German government facilitated the prostitution rings, run by the criminal underworld, when it legalized the sex trade in 2002. Smith noted that at the World Cup, sex entrepreneurs have set up temporary wooden cabins on the streets of Berlin, called "performance boxes," where the soccer fans are cavorting with prostitutes, some as young as 14. Sites on the Internet advertise even more elaborate brothels, including the storied four-story "Artemis," located near the Olympic Stadium, which Worldcupweb.com describes as "ready for the hordes of mostly male soccer fans from around the world who are flooding the city.

Disgrace of the Women Trafficked into the Sex Trade. [EU] Amid the excitement of the World Cup, spare a thought for the women trafficked into both Germany to work in the sex trade, says Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland director of Amnesty International. And there is also evidence, he says, that this evil trade is happening on our own doorstep. The excitement is building. As the World Cup gets underway in Germany we stock our fridges and place our bets, it is worth reflecting on the dark side of this international football fixation. It is expected that up to 40,000 prostitutes will enter Germany, to meet the demands of World Cup fans. Police and women's groups believe that a significant number of these women are likely to have been trafficked. But what about Northern Ireland? Recent research from Northern Ireland Women's Aid Federation has uncovered evidence that trafficking may be taking place on our very doorstep.

Mother Forced to Work as Sex Slave to Pay Ransom for Son. [Spain] Two women have been accused of kidnapping a newborn child and holding him prisoner for nearly four years to force his mother to prostitute herself. The three-year-old boy was freed by police after they raided a flat near Madrid. Two women were arrested in connection with the alleged kidnapping, which took place in August 2002. The case is one of the darkest episodes in the murky world of Spain's burgeoning sex-slave trade and has shocked the country as it struggles to cope with a wave of African immigration. The child's Nigerian mother told police that days after she gave birth to the boy, he was snatched from her. A E45,000 ransom was demanded and she was forced to work as a prostitute to pay it off. The mother, who said she was brought to Spain as an illegal immigrant but who now lives legally with her partner, added that she had faced voodoo threats if she went to police. She said she worked as a prostitute in sex clubs in Madrid and other parts of Spain to pay off her "debt".

Women 'Auctioned' at Airports. [England] Foreign women are being auctioned off for prostitution in public places in Britain such as airports, said the crown prosecution service (CPS) on Sunday. "Criminal activity at the UK's airports is on the increase," said the CPS's director in west London, Nazir Afzal. "We are now seeing slave auctions being held in public places at airports where brothel keepers are bidding for women destined for prostitution." A spokesperson for the CPS said one such auction was held recently in front of a cafe in the arrivals hall at Gatwick Airport, south of London. Other sales had taken place in the London airports of Heathrow and Stansted, and at other British airports, he said. The CPS, which hosts a conferenceon Monday on crime in airports, says the people to whom traffickers are selling the young women as they arrive in Britain, often come from eastern European countries. The most-recent government figures show that, five years ago, 1,400 women were working as prostitutes in quasi-slavery in Britain.

Mayor Wants Brothels Kept From Cemeteries. [Australia] Brothels and cemeteries don't mix and should remain at least 660 feet apart, a local government official said Tuesday. Paul Pisasale, the mayor of Queensland state town of Ipswich, is part of a movement being led by the Urban Local Government Association to prevent brothels from being built near cemeteries. Prostitution is legal in Australia in limited circumstances. "There's a lot of families and services that are going on and the last thing you want is someone conducting a spiritual service and a cemetery reflection time for family and a brothel going on next door," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Tuesday. "It's totally inappropriate. There's a place for brothels and a place for cemeteries and we don't believe the two mix."

10 Years for Enslaving Thai Women. [Australia] An Australian jury has found a 44-year-old Chinese-Australian woman, Wei Tang, guilty of possessing and using slaves at her brothel, called Club 417 in a Melbourne suburb. In the first such case in Australian history, Wei was sentenced to 10 years in jail under sexual servitude laws - in short, sex slavery. She must serve a minimum of six years. Tang had pleaded not guilty to the charges. The court heard five Thai women, who wanted to make money for a better life for themselves, were smuggled into Australia. Wei told them they had to pay off a A$45,000 (about 1.3 million baht) contract, working six days a week for no pay. They had to work a seventh day if they hoped to make pocket money. Judge Michael McInerney said the women were financially deprived and vulnerable, had no friends and feared immigration reprisals, so they stayed hidden. He said while they were not kept under lock and key, they were restrained by the insidious nature of their contract. They could not leave or run away as they had no money, no passport and limited English, Australian Associated Press reported.

Women Duped into Foreign Marriages. [Viet Nam] Thousands of Vietnamese women, most of them poor and uneducated, are illegally leaving the country to marry foreigners, a senior police official said on Saturday. Nguyen Viet Thanh, deputy head of the police under the Ministry of Public Security, said he was not concerned with legitimate “love” marriages with foreigners. But many of the so-called marriages are actually cases of human trafficking in disguise. “Those illegally leaving Vietnam and marrying foreigners often fall prey to prostitution rings and are sometimes sold as commodities,” said Thanh who is attending a two-day meeting in Ho Chi Minh City that is looking at how to toughen laws to prevent these marriages. “There are cases in which a Vietnamese woman has to be a wife for many members of the same family. She is treated very badly.” According to information presented at the conference that is being sponsored by the Vietnam’s Women’s Union, since 1998, nearly 87,000 Vietnamese women have married foreigners. Of that number, 10,700 left the country illegally to do so. Vietnamese nationals are free to travel abroad but if they plan to get married they must first register. It is also illegal to leave on a tourist visa and not return.

Treaties Urged For Women's Rights. [Peru] Human rights activists and civic leaders in Latin America must work to get international treaties at all levels to include protections for women's rights, experts said Friday at a conference to promote female leaders in the region. International treaties that guarantee these rights will help individual governments withstand pressure from conservative forces inside their countries seeking to chip away at the gains women have made in the past 20 years in civic life, former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda told a group of more than 50 female leaders from across the hemisphere. Castaneda, who resigned from President Vicente Fox's administration in 2003 over the country's failure to reach a migration accord with the United States, recalled his response to groups that sought to restrict women's rights. "I would say: 'What can I do? I would be happy to get rid of the rights, but we already signed an international treaty. My hands are tied,'" Castaneda said. Elaine Karp de Toledo, outgoing first lady of Peru and an anthropologist, agreed. She said international collaboration is especially key in the fight against human trafficking. "As the name trafficking suggests, these people are extremely mobile, and we have to work together more," Karp said. According to a 2006 report by the United Nations, an estimated 21 percent of human traffickers are from Latin America. Conference participants said they were impressed by newly elected Chilean President Michelle Bachelet's decision to make her Cabinet 50 percent female, but some voiced concern the policy could lead to a backlash. "When I was seeing all those women, I was scared. I thought, 'They will have to succeed, otherwise it will be very bad,'" said Danielle St. Lot, Haiti's former commerce, industry and tourism minister.

Female Sex Workers Trapped in 'Abuse Cycle'. [South Africa] South African commercial sex workers - including those in Durban - are forced to bring in R600 a day by their pimps, or face a beating. They are in a "trapped cycle of abuse" and are given or voluntarily use "wakies" (crack cocaine) to help them cope with having sex with strangers. Their use of condoms was erratic (they tried to use them, but did not if a client requested them not to) and were less informed about HIV prevention and service availability. An international gathering in Durban to discuss HIV and Aids was told this on Monday by Dr Okey Nwanyanwu, Director of the United States (US) Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (the American department of health), who is working on the Global Aids Programme in Pretoria.

Human Trafficking: the Modern Day Slave Trade. [World] Human trafficking is the recruitment and transportation of people, usually to another country, by force or coercion, for the purposes of exploitation, including forced labour and sexual exploitation. The trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, and prostitution in particular, is a world wide problem, sadly including the UK. It is difficult to assess the extent of the problem in the UK given its secretive nature but it has been estimated by the Home Office that anything up to 1420 women a year are trafficked into the UK, although others suggest numbers are higher. Last year 49 people were charged with trafficking people, out of whom 32 were found guilty and the rest are awaiting trial. Women are trafficked into this country mainly from Central and Eastern Europe and Asia. It is estimated that 80% of people involved in prostitution are now foreign nationals, with the majority probably having been trafficked. Some women are forcibly abducted and trafficked from their country and some are even sold by so-called boyfriends. Some will also have experienced violence and abuse prior to being trafficked, either as part of their 'grooming' or because they were already close to violent men involved in trafficking. Traffickers also employ other methods to lure women oversees, for example by advertising domestic employment opportunities abroad, or by approaching women in clubs and bars with the offer of employment and accommodation abroad. Some women may be aware that employment will be in the adult entertainment industry and even prostitution but will not be aware of the extent to which the traffickers will control their lives once they arrive at their destination. Sadly, the draw of Western life may blind women to such risks.

Trafficked Women's Symptoms Akin to Torture Victims'. [World] Women and girls trafficked for forced sexual or domestic work suffer post-traumatic stress on a par with torture victims, researchers said on Wednesday. In one of the first studies of health problems of women who have been trafficked, they found 95 percent had been physically or sexually abused and nearly 40 percent had suicidal thoughts. "This research shows that women who have been trafficked into sex work emerge with very severe pain and injuries and they show psychological health problems that appear to be similar to those documented among victims of torture," said Dr Cathy Zimmerman, the author of the report published by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The International Labour Organization estimates that at least 2.5 million people around the world are in forced labor at any given time. Zimmerman, a researcher in public health policy, said because of its underground nature it was difficult to get precise numbers. "This is an international trade that is happening in virtually every corner of the world," she said in an interview. "The majority believe they are getting a job doing something like waitressing, being a nanny or working in a bar. Most of them are tricked into the situation."