Fight Human Trafficking

A Time Line of Films on Prostitution and Resources

2008-04-21T18:24:00.001-07:00

Students & Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery

This INTERACTIVE time line is meant to illustrate the long history of filmic representations of prostitution. This time line is inspired by CATW HBO Action on April 24th

Visit the SAFEHS website for details about the action and read through the interactive time line.

http://www.safehs.com/films_prostitution.htm

SAFEHS V-Day

2008-02-14T17:15:00.001-08:00

Share this image with friends and family!

SAFEHS Wishes everyone a SAFE V-Day by Being Internet SAFE!

Excerpts from: Technology Is a Double-Edged Sword:

2008-02-03T23:32:00.000-08:00

This blog has excerpts that highlight how internet trafficking has become an important issue of the 21st century especially with its increasing use around the globe.
To read a full length of this article, visit:
http://www.crime-research.org/articles/Mohamed2

Technology Is a Double-Edged Sword: Illegal Human Trafficking in the Information Age
Date: March 05, 2005
Source: Computer Crime Research Center

By: Judge Mohamed CHAWKI and Dr. Mohamed WAHAB

Introduction
Trafficking in human beings is a major concern for the global community. The introduction, growth, and utilisation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been accompanied by an increase in illegal exploitation and abuse of technology for criminal activities. With respect to cyberspace, the Internet is increasingly used as a tool and medium by transnational organised crime. Human trafficking is an obvious form of organised crime that has been affected by the global revolution in ICT. This form of illegal trafficking is not exclusive to sexual exploitation with respect to women or children trafficking but also covers indentured servitude and child labour. This new form of slavery violates fundamental and basic human rights and freedoms, and transcends national boundaries and territories to negatively impact on numerous countries across the globe. It is estimated that over 900,000 people are being trafficked every year.

This illicit activity is also connected with other forms of transnational criminal behavior such as corruption, fraud, coercion, and money laundering. Thus, there is persisting need for international cooperation, especially between countries of origin, transit, and destination to stamp out such illicit activities and protect the fundamental rights of powerless victims.

Although new techniques are constantly being implemented and regulations being adopted to combat and eradicate diverse forms of human trafficking, yet ICTs are also providing new means and tools that facilitate human trafficking, especially for sexual exploitation. On such a basis, these new forms of organised crime present new challenges to lawmakers, law enforcement agencies, and transnational human rights organisations. This necessitates the existence of an effective supra-national as well as domestic mechanisms that monitor the utilisation of ICT for criminal activities and uphold essential human rights and freedoms.

Accordingly, this white paper seeks to address and analyse the following issues: Firstly, the impact of ICTs on trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation, and the techniques used. Secondly, an analysis of the existing legislative and regulatory framework and their efficiency in combating this form of cross-border organised crime will be provided, taking the European Union as a case study. Finally, the paper will conclude by discussing the steps that should be taken to protect human rights and minimise the risk of utilising ICTs in illegal criminal activities, especially with respect to human trafficking.

I. The Use of the ICTs in Trafficking in Human Beings

A) A Study of the Phenomenon
1) Understanding the Concept of Trafficking in Human Beings
Many different definitions of trafficking in human beings have been suggested by scholars, domestic law, and international agreements. Amongst the most influential definitions, is the one offered by the United Nations protocol to prevent, suppress, and punish trafficking in persons especially women and children supplementing the United Nations convention against transnational organised crime takes the term trafficking in human beings to mean :

“The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs”.

We should notice that trafficking is not Smuggling. Smuggling is generally voluntary, where a person agrees to be trans-ported, usually across a border. The relationship between the smuggler and the person being smuggled usually ends when the border is crossed. Smuggling fees are paid up front or perhaps upon arrival. On the other hand, trafficking is not voluntary: trafficked persons are lied to, tricked and may be forced into crossing a border. The relationship between the transporter and the victim continues well after they reach the destination. The trafficker holds the victim’s documents, threatens them or their family if they do not obey him. Traffickers impose large debts on victims of trafficking for ‘transportation’ and force victims to work off these debts. Smuggling can turn into trafficking when the smuggler uses threats of harm or coercion against the person smuggled or ‘sells’ the person and transport debt to a trafficker.

2) Human Factor
The use of ICTs in trafficking in human beings involves the utilisation of computers and / or networks. However, as sophisticated as technology had become and as fascinating as the science of artificial intelligence (AI) might be, we are not yet at the point where computers can-by themselves-engage in criminal activity. The machines are wonderfully compliant and totally amoral. Trafficking in human beings by the use of ICTs always involves at least one human being who plans, prepares, and initiates the criminal act.

a) Understanding the Traffickers
Traffickers may be freelancers or members of organized criminal networks. They may recruit and find potential victims through advertisements in local newspapers offering good jobs at high pay in exciting cities or use fraudulent travel, modeling and matchmaking agencies to lure unsuspecting young men and women into trafficking schemes. A trafficker may be a family friend or someone well-known within the community who is able to convince the families that their children will be safer and better taken care of in a new place. Traffickers often mislead parents into believing that their children will be taught a useful skill or trade - but the children end up enslaved in small shops, on farms, or in domestic servitude. Many types of traffickers depend on the use of a computer network to accomplish the criminals act. In such cases, technology is directly used to commit the crime.

b) The Victims
Victims include: men, women and children, although most agree that women and children are more often victims of trafficking. Generally, traffickers prey on those most vulnerable: people who are very poor, who have disabilities, the very young or old, people who have low literacy skills and educational levels, or people who cannot speak English. Women are lured by promises of employment as shopkeepers, maids, nannies, or waitresses but then find themselves forced into prostitution upon arrival to their destination. Many victims are unaware that their travel documents will be seized, they will have to repay an enormous debt, or that they will be subject to brutal beatings if their earnings are unsatisfactory. These victims do not know how to escape the violence or where to go for help. The victims generally avoid authorities out of fear of being jailed or deported, especially if they have fraudulent documents. Traffickers often move victims from their home communities to other areas -- within their country or to foreign countries -- where the victim is often isolated, unable to speak the language and unfamiliar with the culture. Most importantly, the victims lose their support network of family and friends, thus making them more vulnerable to the traffickers’ demands and threats.

c) The Users in ICTs Supported Trafficking
Actually, we limited the analysis of the users to collectors of child pornography, stalkers and buyers. Some of the distributors of pornography on the Internet started off as collectors, and then decided to profit from their collections. Other sex offenders such as pedophiles can engage children on many levels, from sexual talk to enticing
them into physical contact. Lastly there are those who buy women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

1. Collectors of Pornographic Materials
Acquiring a computer and accessing the Internet enables to get satisfaction from images and fantasy and meet a virtual community of people who reinforce their behavior. They may develop a sense of confidence in themselves for their new computer skills and success at building a large collection. Most start out accessing adult pornography, and then move on to child pornography. They continually move up to more sophisticated technologies and more extreme forms of sexual exploitation of children, either in seeking more harmful, extreme images, or the physical sexual abuse of children. Collecting these materials is an important psychological process and is directly connected to acquiring new technological skills. The offender becomes increasingly “empowered” by the combination of a physical collection, sexual satisfaction, computer skills and a supportive online community.

2. The Stalkers
In fact the Internet has become a favored site for stalking children. Sex offender can engage children on many levels, from sexual chat to enticing them into physical contact. The many ways of disguising a person's identity has allowed many child sex stalkers to commit sex crimes against children with impunity. During a three year Internet law enforcement project, conducted by the Keene Police Department, New Hampshire, USA, 200 offenders were arrested who targeted male children. In this project, police officers entered chat rooms and newsgroups pretending to be boys. Forty-eight of those men were “travellers,” meaning they stalked boys online and eventually travelled to meet. They stalked boys online and eventually travelled to meet them. They ranged in age from 17 to 56, with a mean age of 35, and the following age distribution: 17 to29 (38%), 30s (25%), 40s (27%), and 50s (10%). Most, but not all, of these stalkers collected child pornography. Four of the men travelled internationally from Canada, Netherlands and Norway, and the others travelled from 10 different states in the United States. A few of the stalkers sent money, bus or airline tickets for the boys to use to run away and meet them.

3. The Buyers
Those who use the Internet to search for women trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation seem to be mostly traveling businessmen, local men reporting on local prostitution, or students. Some of them say they consult newsgroups or Web sites before they travel and even print out the information to take with them. Some of the men write about their experiences buying women for the purpose of sexual exploitation as a way of reliving the experience. Some include a lot of graphic details that indicate they are getting enjoyment out of reliving the experience through writing about it.

B) The Scope of the Phenomenon
Having defined the concept of trafficking in women, it becomes necessary to determine the scope of the problem. This involves examination of not only the number of human beings trafficked each year, but also their characteristics, what makes them vulnerable to being manipulated ,where they are coming from, and what conditions they suffer once in this situation.

1) Prerequisites of Trafficking
In fact, the main reasons for trafficking in human beings are economic. After the fall of the communist bloc, there were economic crises in most of the countries of South East Europe. The high number of unemployed caused great difficulties for families. They were in dire need for jobs and financial resources. Thus, the fell victims to trafficking of human beings. Secondly, there are educational reasons, especially the lack of an appropriate level of education. Most of the victims of trafficking are poor and not well educated. Today, women are mainly trafficked from South to North, from South to South and from East to West. The flows are from poorer countries to countries where the standard of living for an average person is relatively higher. The fact that lesser developed countries, populations are used for trafficking supports the recognition of a right to development as a human right. Trafficking is linked with forced prostitution that follows false promises of well-paid jobs. The seemingly economic hopelessness in the Newly Independent States, transitional economies opened what experts call the most lucrative market of all to Russian criminal gangs. Law-enforcement officials and relief groups all agree that Ukrainian and Russian women are now the most valuable in the trade. Although accurate statistics are difficult to find, the United Nations estimates that 4 million people throughout the world are trafficked each year.

2) The Magnitude of this Phenomenon
Concerning trafficking in children and women for sexual exploitation in Europe, two geographical areas merit a mention. The Western and the Northern parts of Europe, which serve as destination areas, and Eastern and Central Europe and the former Soviet Union which serve as transit areas and a source. In Western Europe alone, the International Organisation for Migration estimates that around 500,000 women per year are trafficked from poorer regions in the world.

- A recent U.S. Government estimate indicates that approximately 800,000- 900,000 people annually are trafficked across international borders worldwide and between 18,000 and 20,000 of those victims are trafficked into the United States. This estimate includes men, women, and children trafficked into forced labor and sexual exploitation as defined in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. This estimate does not include internal trafficking. The new figures were generated from a database that examined reports of specific trafficking incidents, counts of repatriated victims, estimates for victims worldwide, and victim demographics derived from analysis of information from press, governments, non-governmental and international organizations, and academic reports from 2000 to the present.

- In Europe, an increasing portion of the trafficked women comes from the former socialist countries. A growing amount of women who want to search for work abroad are deceived by traffickers into leaving their countries, believing that they will work as dancers or hostesses, or even as prostitutes, but instead end up living under slave-like conditions where their fundamental human rights are violated. For criminal groups, trafficking in women is very profitable with revenues more than seven billion dollars annually from trafficking in human beings.

- According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and the U.S. State Department, 700,000 to 2 million people, the majority of them women and children, are trafficked each year across international borders. Thirty-five percent are under the age of 18.
- According to the IOM, the majority of these victims come from Asia, with more than 225,000 arriving annually from Southeast Asia and more than 150,000 from South Asia. The former Soviet Union has become the largest new source of forced prostitution with 100,000 trafficked each year from the New Independent States. More than 75,000 are trafficked from Eastern Europe, 100,000 from Latin America and the Caribbean, and over 50,000 from Africa. Most of the victims are sent to large cities, vacation or tourist areas, or military bases in Asia, the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America.

C) The Use of New Technologies in Human Trafficking
The world’s transition into an information society is being marked by profound developments in all aspects of human life: in work, education and leisure, in government, industry and trade. The new information and communication technologies are having a revolutionary and fundamental impact on our economies and societies. The success of the information society is important for developing, competitiveness and employment opportunities, and has far- reaching economic, social and legal implications. Information and communication infrastructures have become critical parts of our economies. Nevertheless, the exploitation of ICTs for criminal activities is a Sid effect. These criminal activities may take a large variety of forms and may cross many borders. Although, for a number of reasons, there are no reliable statistics, there is little doubt that these offences constitute a threat to industry investment and assets, and to safety and confidence in the information society. The universal digital accessibility opens up new opportunities for the unscrupulous. There is scope for action both in terms of preventing criminal activity by enhancing the security of information infrastructures and by ensuring that the law enforcement authorities have the appropriate means to act, whilst fully respecting the fundamental rights of individuals. With respect to this impact of technology, a question that arises is to determine whether the concept of trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation necessarily involves physical movement, or also includes attention online exploitation of virtual images of people.

1) ITCs and Sexual Exploitation
In fact, various kinds of technology means can be used for the purpose of sexual exploitation - either by individuals for their own private use or by persons or groups using the Internet as a commercial tool, to promote and sell images or services. Technical aspects are crucial for the development of sites which exploit all the technical possibilities of the Internet. Often, the geographical location of the server exerts a negative impact on jurisdiction and legal issues. The, the main techniques that are used worldwide involve:

a) Mainstream Communications
Like cable TV, which can be used in connection with trafficking of women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Images made using trafficked women may be transmitted to viewers through these venues. New cable Networks use satellite transmission to deliver hundreds of channels and pay-per-view delivers content on demand. Cable companies consider that the more sexually explicit the content the greater the demand.

According to Paul FISHBEIN, owner of Adult Video News “There are many outlets, that even if you spend just $ 15,000 and two days – and put in some plot and good-looking people and decent sex – you can get satellite and cable sales. There are so many companies, and they rarely go out of business. You have to be really stupid or greedy to fail”.

b) Scanners and Video Digitizers
They are nowadays used to change old pornographic images and videos into electronic format that can be accessed online. Digital cameras and recorders enable the making of images that do not need to be professionally processed, thereby eliminating the risk of detection. These new types of equipment also make it technologically easier for people to become producers of pornography. Digital media formats are no longer static. One format can be quickly converted into another. From one video, 200-300 still images can be captured and then uploaded to a Web site. According to an Adult Video Producer “Anyone, with a video camera can be a director – there are countless bottom feeders selling nasty loops on used tape. Whatever the equality or origin of a product, it can at the very least be exhibited on one of the 70,000 adult pay Web sites, about a quarter of which are owned by a few privately held companies that slice and dice the same held companies that slice and dice the same content under different brands”.

c) The Digital Video Disk (DVD)
Videos of sexually exploited and trafficked victims can be shot from multiple angles, and copied on DVDs for distribution and online accessibility. Viewers can interact with DVD movies in much the same way they do with video games, giving them a more active role. According to a producer:

“If a viewer wants something different, we give it to him. The viewer can go inside the head of the person having sex with [name deleted], male or female. He can choose which character to follow. He can re-edit the movie. It’s a great technology”.
Although technologies like this have many applications and enable creativity and interactivity, when used in pornographic films, these raise the question of the impact on people and expectations about relationships. A portion of men who practice the illegal trafficking in women do so either because their lack of social skills or their misogynistic attitudes prevent them from establishing relationships with their peers.

d) The Internet Applications and Services
This help in the transfer of files, images and videos across geographical boarders instantaneously in an undetected manner. Accordingly most acts are committed with the help of:
1. Web Sites
They are considered the main factor for the distribution of sexual materials online. Moreover streaming videos can be downloaded or viewed with Web browsers. The most recent versions of Web browsers come packaged with plug-ins. The only country for which there seems to be a decline in Web advertisements for sexual materials is Sweden. The new Swedish law has deterred public advertising for adult entertainment. A Web site registered in Denmark claims it to have the “world’s largest collection of real life amateur slaves”. Men are encouraged to “submit a slave to the picture farm”. Graphic descriptions of extremely violent acts are included in the advertisement. A Web site registered in Moscow advertises itself as “the best and most violent rape site on earth”. It claims to have “Several Hunders [sic] of rape pics”. Subscribers are offered 30,000 hardcore porn images, 500 online video channels, and 100 long, high quality videos.

2. Peer to Peer Networks:
They are mostly known under the brand of Napster. Within this application, the Peer-to- Peer networking concept is used to share files, i.e. The exchange of MPEG compressed audio files. However, Peer-to-Peer is not only about file sharing, it is also about establishing multimedia communication networks based on Peer-to-Peer concepts or resource sharing.

3. File swapping programs:
The file swapping programs are used to search files on the network. With the help of this program, the user designates one directory on his/her computer that will be open to the public and another for downloaded files. When the user logs onto the Internet, he/she will be automatically connected to all other people running the same program. All available files are indexed into a large searchable database. When keywords are entered the request moves from one computer to the next returning links to files. This has revolutionized how computers and people communicate with each other on the Internet.

4. File transfer protocol:
FTP and standard Internet protocol, are the simplest way to exchange files between computers on the Internet. Like the Hypertext Transfer Protocol, which transfers displayable Web pages and related files, and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which transfers e-mail, FTP is an application protocol that uses the Internet's TCP/IP protocols. FTP is used to transfer Web page files from their creator to the computer that acts as their server for everyone on the Internet. It’s also commonly used to download programs and other files to your computer from other servers. As a user, you can use FTP with a simple command line interface (for example, from the Windows MS-DOS Prompt window) or with a commercial program that offers a graphical user interface. Your Web browser can also make FTP requests to download programs you select from a Web page. Using FTP, you can also update (delete, rename, move, and copy) files at a server. This technique of file exchange can be used by collectors of sexually explicit materials of trafficked victims.

5. Search engines:
They can contribute to the expansion of sexual exploitation. Search engines are becoming more sophisticated and powerful in indexing the content of cyberspace. As a result users seeking particular types of adult entertainment, women, children, locations, etc. can find it faster and with more precision.

6. Chat Rooms:
The most common means by which sexual predators contact children over the Internet is through chat rooms, instant messages and email. In fact, 89% of sexual solicitations were made in either chat rooms or instant messages and 1 in 5 youth (ages 10-17 years) has been sexually solicited online (JAMA, 2001). Considering that 25% of kids online participate in real time chat and 13 million use instant messaging, the risks of such children, either knowingly or unknowingly, interacting with a predator is alarming. It is estimated that there are more than 100,000 chat rooms available to users world wide. Moreover those seeking to buy women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation use these rooms to exchange information about location and prices of enslaved women and children all over the world.

In one case, a thirty-seven-year-old German man living in Greece contacted a fourteen-year-old girl from Florida in a chat room. He followed her Internet communication with letters by mail and telephone calls. After a long time of corresponding, he convinced the girl to run out from Florida and to travel to Greece to work. A woman met her, gave her a programmed cell phone and drove her to a local airport. The girl flew to Ohio where a convicted child pornographer assisted her in getting a passport and leaving the United Sates. However, the Police were able to trace the girl by examining the e-mails saved on her computer at home. They found her in Greece where they also arrested the German gentleman. He was charged with abduction of a minor with malicious intent, sexual assault and exposing a minor to improper material. Investigation of his home revealed child pornography of other girls.

(7) Pornographic spam:
Spam, which is generally considered unsolicited commercial e-mail, makes up about half of all e-mail sent worldwide. Much of it is deceptive, and costs businesses billions of dollars each year.

II. Analysing the Existing Legislative Instruments and their Efficiency in Combating
Human Trafficking
In fact, many countries have legislations under which perpetrators, distributors and peddlers of sexually explicit material may be prosecuted, trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation can be fought, even when such offences are facilitated through the medium of the Internet. However, the fundamental right to free communication and the right to secrecy of correspondence are intangible, but all too often, criminals misuse these rights to disguise the real nature of their activities.
The authorities and the police will always find it difficult to distinguish between these cases, and the fact that this takes place on the Internet certainly does not make matters easier for them. Hence there is a persisting need to give investigators more technical and financial resources and provide sound training on the subject. Even at national level it is no easy matter to deal with criminals who use the Internet, and it is all the more difficult if they are operating from abroad. Sentences may be passed in certain cases, but are rarely enforced in the countries in which such persons are active.

In most cases, the sole means open to the police is to send the incriminating evidence to their counterparts in another country via the usual Interpol or Europol channels. If the laws of that country permit, and if the actions are punishable, the perpetrator may be prosecuted. Children under 18 cannot give valid consent, and any recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation is a form of trafficking regardless of the means used.

Experts also underlined that there was a gap between cases concerning children and child pornography, clearly prohibited by most European laws, where Internet content providers had been asked to close Internet sites, and cases involving trafficked adults or mail order brides, where the laws were less clear and the actions taken less effective. Even with the preparation and adoption of adequate legislation, the importance of establishing adequate means of implementing such legislation, which otherwise would remain only a token gesture, remains crucial.

The difficulty in prosecution of crimes committed over the Internet is not so much an absence of specific legislation, but rather a difficulty in applying existing norms to a technology that did not exist at the time the legislation was drafted. The transient and intangible nature of the Internet, as well as the anonymity and secrecy that communications via the Internet permits make the identification of the author and/or intended recipient of an illicit communication, as well as the collection of evidence, much more difficult and elusive. This is one of the reasons why government authorities, especially in Belgium, France and the Netherlands, now tend to concentrate their legislative efforts towards adapting procedural and investigative tools to the specificities of the new technology.

section cut -- about the E.U. Visit original to read

Conclusion

Human trafficking is a persisting international evil that transcends national boundaries in a manner that renders this form of organized crime a global concern. Human trafficking may take several forms including trafficking for forced labour, servitude, and organ removal. However, trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation is a major criminal activity and a blatant evil that should be effectively tackled on all levels. It has been seen that amongst the major reasons that facilitate trafficking are: economic, educational, and social conditions. Source countries are mainly low-income developing and under developed States, which renders human trafficking a manifestation of a larger development divide.

On a different note, the globalisation of technology and the revolutionary advancement of ICTs have impacted on criminal activity, especially human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Mainstream communications, video digitizers, Internet applications and services, and software and file transfer protocols are amongst the tools utilized by traffickers to commit their crime and promote their services. The increasing proliferation in usage of technology assisted criminal activity and trafficking merits further attention from the global community by enacting the necessary legislative provisions and implementing effective technological and enforcement tools that reduce ICT-facilitated criminal activities.

By and large, it is submitted that human trafficking should be subject to a global principle of public policy that aims at combating and preventing this form of organized crime through raising global awareness and increasing literacy rates, promoting economic development, improving social conditions in least developed source and transit countries, coordinating legislative efforts on national, regional and global levels, and establishing a high level global network of cooperation between national, regional, and international enforcement agencies and police forces.

CRAIGSLIST'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: CHILDREN SOLD ON WEBSITE

2008-01-10T16:01:00.000-08:00

Dear friends of Students & Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery:

Please support the Love146 "Call to Action" campaign. Details of the campaign are below, and the general history of the action plan is also available on our SAFEHS website: www.safehs.com

In order for effective anti-trafficking work to occur, requires supporting/collaborating our sister causes. We hope that you will all support the boycott of Craigslist until they take seriously the sale of human beings/human trafficking on their website. Please share widely.

sincerely,
-Annie Fukushima-
Founder of Students & Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery
www.safehs.com

---------- THE LOVE146 CAMPAIGN DETAILS----------

CRAIGSLIST'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: CHILDREN SOLD ON WEBSITE

Last month, Love146 initiated a "Call to Action" campaign to ask Craiglist, popular public marketplace website, to make a New Year's resolution of better monitoring its "Erotic Services" section
in order to pro-actively prevent the sale and trafficking of children for sexual purposes.

We have been greatly encouraged by the flood of supportive email responses, all committing to joining in our collective shout to challenge Craigslist in its lackluster efforts to eradicate
human trafficking from its site. Other organizations have also rallied to this cause,such as Salvation Army, Polaris Project, The Loose Change to Loosen Chains Campaign, the Not for Sale Campaign, Students and Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery, and many more!

So, what now?

Because Craigslist failed to respond to our letter by January 1, we ask that you join us in our boycott of the Craigslist website. We will boycott their site until Craigslist publicly declares a 2008
resolution to implement safeguards and monitoring procedures that will eradicate the sale of human beings on the erotic services section of the website.

What does a boycott mean?
Regularly mailing in and e-mailing the updated petition letter: download it, http://www.love146.org/uploads/CL_Petition_1_2008.doc?tr=y&auid=3291770
Not using the Craigslist site until Craiglist makes a public resolution to eradicate human trafficking from its site
Encouraging your friends to mail and e-mail the updated petition letter and to also boycott Craigslist
Signing up as an Abolitionist (http://www.love146.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=8504) and utilizing upcoming Craigslist Take Action ideas

An effective boycott IS absolutely possible with YOUR help. The unprecedented amount of support our campaign has already garnered highlights the opportunity we have to help eliminate a conduit of
human trafficking. For more information on the Craigslist Campaign, go to http://www.love146.org/pages/page.asp?page_id=25044 .

Love146 Craigslist "Call to Action" Campaign

2007-12-16T21:21:00.000-08:00

As the New Year approaches Love146 continues their efforts to combat child trafficking with renewed hope and ambition. They recently launched a Craigslist "Call to Action" campaign.

Some background on the campaign

The Internet with all of its conveniences has unfortunately become a major platform for facilitating human trafficking, prostitution and sexual exploitation of children. Currently, approximately 400,000 women and children are being prostituted in the U.S. annually. Surprisingly only 10-20% of prostitution is street-based. Behind closed doors, hidden by the anonymity of the Internet the exploitation of children is surging.

Craigslist, an Internet company well known for enabling users to conveniently advertise everything from jobs to housing, has now become a popular marketplace for the sale of human- beings. With its free postings and relative anonymity for its users, Craigslist's "Erotic Services" site has become a vehicle for the trafficking and exploitation of women and children. There have been numerous reportings of children falling prey to traffickers advertising on Craigslist and victims as young as four years old have been sold on the Erotic Services site.

Craigslist in the media

Recent headlines include the January 11, 2007 Cook County, Illinois arrest of three adults, two of which were posting advertisements on Craigslist for girls ranging in age from 14 to 16 years old to perform sex acts. ABC 7 Chicago reported that "some of these girls were forced to turn 10, 12 tricks a day resulting in tens of thousands of dollars for the pimps." (See full article on ABC7Chicago.com: ( http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4928094). In response to the mounting evidence that its site is being used for these insidious purposes, Craigslist often refused to comment or claimed lack of resources to effectively monitor postings.

The Craigslist "Call to Action" campaign, urges Craigslist as a multi-million dollar company and face of other philanthropic causes to take responsibility for the role its site is playing in facilitating child trafficking and exploitation. In light of the New Year, we are asking Craigslist to make a New Year's resolution to follow in the footsteps of MySpace and Google and implement better preventative policies and monitoring efforts to protect its site from being used as a resource for child traffickers. Through several speaking engagements, a national press conference to take place in the spring and a petition directed at Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, Love146 hopes to raise awareness about this issue and encourage Craigslist to take action.

You will notice that at the bottom of the petition we have given Craigslist a deadline of January 1st to proclaim there intent to implement the proper safeguards and monitoring, otherwise we plan to boycott use of their site. While Craigslist claims to have a philanthropic mindset, it also has a bottom line and pressure from its users may put pressure on its financial stability. We have already sent our first mass mailing of the petition from the Love146 office with a message to Craigslist and CEO Jim Buckmaster that the time to act is now.

What YOU can do!

Please join us in our efforts by mailing the petition(preferably certified mail) and e-mailing it to the Craigslist staff: jim@craigslist.org, craig@craigslist.org, conrad@craigslist.org, abuse@craigslist.org.

Click here to download the petition:
http://www.love146.org/uploads/CL_Petition_11_2007.doc
Click here to download the petition and factsheets:
http://www.love146.org/uploads/Craigslist_campaign_2007.pdf

Copy this post and forward to your networks!

Christmas Ornaments Art iInitiative

2007-12-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

Students & Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery
Christmas Ornaments Art Initiative

Did you know that December 10 is International Human Rights Day? What better way to spend it then by mixing some holiday cheer with some human rights activism!

What can you do?

MAKE an Ornament. Join us at 6PM – 9PM on Dec. 10th at 166 Barrows, UC Berkeley for ornament making. Supplies provided; feel free to bring supplies to share. While we make ornaments, we will view short human trafficking video clips and critically engage with issues of modern day slavery and how Youtube has become a vehicle for the anti-trafficking movement. This is a wonderful networking opportunity and a fun way to learn more about how human trafficking impacts us. Meet SAFEHS organizers and our friends of SFWFF.

DONATE an ornament. Join us at 6PM – 9PM on Dec. 10th at 166 Barrows, UC Berkeley. Can't make it but still interested in donating an ornament? For details on how to donate an ornament email: info@safehs.com.

BUY an ornament. Our website store will be updated on December 12, 2007 with ornaments for purchase (from our Ornament making on Dec. 10 and donated ornaments). All proceeds will go to the San Francisco Women's Film Festival to help support their anti-sex trafficking awareness program of their film festival in April 2008.

We look forward to having you join us in the fight to end human slavery!
Questions? Contact: info@safehs.com
Or Visit: www.safehs.com

Bay Area Freedom Run/Walk Images & Reflections

2007-11-27T00:55:00.000-08:00

Visit our SAFEHS website to check out images from the run/walk and a reflection from one of our student participants:

www.safehs.com/freedomrun.html

Impressions of Freedom

2007-11-19T04:18:00.000-08:00

The Bay Area Freedom Run/Walk was this Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007! The event, a small group of activist and community organizers raised money to support organizations whose mission is to combat modern day slavery. In the spirit of art as activism, we wore tshirts designed by My Definicion whose philosophy is one that uses art and language to convey meaning to life:

A simple word, printed on a piece of fabric, could have so many conclusions, interpretations and functions. A graphic remains a graphic whereas a word becomes a part of a conversation, thought or sentiment. Design and life verbalized.

The reason why we decided to go with Freedom Run Shirts with My Definicion is because of their commitment to other human right causes and the use of arts to spread a message through graphics on a tshirt. The design is incredible, many thanks to Brian at My Definicion.

To order a shirt in the spirit of freedom visit:
http://definicion.myshopify.com/products/freedom-t-shirt

To learn more about My Definicion, visit: www.mydefinicion.com .

Images of the signs we carried will be up soon.

SAFEHS NOVEMBER CALENDAR OF EVENTS,

2007-10-23T23:01:00.001-07:00

SAFEHS NOVEMBER CALENDAR OF EVENTS,
For more updates, visit:
http://www.safehs.com/events.htm

THEATRE PERFORMANCE
November 9th, SAFEHS is sponsoring One New Earth and the performance of "My Real Name"
7PM at the Worth Ryder Gallery, University of California, Berkeley
To view digital flier visit: http://www.safehs.com/artevents.htm

ART EXHIBIT
November 6-11, Worth Ryder Gallery, SAFEHS will feature works from our workshops at the Visuality & Alterity Working Group Symposium and Art Exhibit. Website still being updated with details, but for current program, visit: www.outoftimespace.net

POETRY PUBLICATION
November 11, at University of California (details to be determined, visit www.safehs.com for updates), SAFEHS will have a poetry publication event for our collaboration with Achiote Press and the publication of "Speaking Truths: The Poetics of Defining Human Slavery".

WEEKEND OF HEALING Nov. 17 & 18
As activists whose schedule is pact with helping to support various communities we come from, in order to help support those communities our health and spiritual well being are incredibly important to being part of the movement. As part of our weekend of healing, join SAFEHS for a run and a reiki class:

1) Bay Area Freedom Run: We are helping to organize this Polaris Project Event here in the Bay Area, the Bay Area Freedom Run,
Visit our website to register http://www.safehs.com/freedomrun.html
2) Free Reiki Class
10AM, November 18, 2007
Woman's Building, San Francisco 3543 18th St # 8, San Francisco, CA

Screen Printing & Cartooning Workshops

2007-10-08T19:17:00.001-07:00

Students & Artists Fighting to End Human Slavery

workshop series

All workshops are free, dinner provided after workshops. 13 and older welcome. To pre-register, contact: annie@safehs.com
To learn more about SAFEHS visit: www.safehs.com

"Impressions of Slavery: Screen Printing Workshops"
October 2 and 9, Tuesday
3PM-5PM,
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts
2868 Mission St, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94110, United States

If you could design a t-shirt that spoke out against human slavery, how would the images in mainstream piece together -- what sort of impression would you want to make? Bring your own shirts, SAFEHS can provide t-shirts, but we must be contacted in advance with your shirt size.

"Cartooning Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow"
October 10, Wednesday
3PM-5PM,
The Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco
655 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA

Join us at the Cartoon Museum for a tour of the museum and a workshop on political cartoons.

Workshop: "Speaking Truths: The Poetics of Defining Human Slavery"

2007-08-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

"Speaking Truths: The Poetics of Defining Human Slavery"
Poetry Workshop Series, sponsored by Achiote Press
SAFEHS Workshop Series Fall 2007

September 20 & 27 (Thursday)
3PM-5PM
Woman's Building, San Francisco

The Poetry Workshop Series will be organized by the editorial team of Achiote Press and taught by Jennifer Reimer, co-founder of Achiote, published poet and Ethnic Studies scholar. The two-week poetry workshop series will introduce participants to the many ways poetry can be used to voice experience. During the workshop, participants will have a chance to read and hear poetry published by contemporary women writers of color. Writing exercises will include everything from composing stanzas to performing spoken word "poems." Our writing and discussions will center on how we, as women, can use poetic expression to explore issues relating to identity, ethnicity/race, sexuality and oppression. At the end of the series, participants can choose to have their work included in a special workshop anthology, published by Achiote Press.

To register for workshop, visit: http://www.safehs.com
Questions? Contact Annie Fukushima: annie@safehs.com

U.S.-WIDE VIGIL FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF GABNET 3-- U.S. CITIZENS /PERMANENT RESIDENT BANNED FROM LEAVING THE PHILIPPINES

2007-08-13T12:38:00.000-07:00

Apologies for duplicate emails. Please distribute far and wide…

Contacts: Faith Santilla faithsantilla@yahoo.com 626.353.2649
Milady Quito gabnet3offthelist@gabnet.org

U.S.-WIDE VIGIL FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF GABNET 3-- U.S. CITIZENS / PERMANENT RESIDENT BANNED FROM LEAVING THE PHILIPPINES

WHAT: Vigil demanding the immediate release of GABNet 3--National Chairperson Dr. Annalisa Enrile, Founders Ninotchka Rosca and Judith Mirkinson

WHEN: 13 August 2007, Monday, 4PM

WHERE: Chicago , Los Angeles , New York / New Jersey , and San Francisco/Bay Area

LOS ANGELES
Vigil starting at 4:00pm
Philippine Consulate
3600 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles , CA 90010
losangeles@gabnet.org

SAN FRANCISCO/BAY AREA
Philippine Consulate
447 Sutter St .
San Francisco , CA 94108
sfbayarea@gabnet.org

NEW YORK/NEW JERSEY
Philippine Consulate
556 Fifth Ave.
New York , NY 10036
nynj@gabnet.org

SAN DIEGO
Vigil starting at 6:00pm
corner of 805 Freeway & Plaza Blvd
National City , CA 91950
sandiego@gabnet.org

On Monday, August 13, 2007, GABRIELA Network USA (GABNet) will hold a US-wide vigil in front of Philippine Consular Offices to demand the immediate removal of 3 of its leaders from the Philippine Department of Justice's "hold" list and that they be allowed to return home to the US at once.

GABNet National Chairperson Dr. Annalisa Enrile was barred from boarding her return flight from Manila , Philippines last August 5th. The Philippine DOJ had put her on a "hold" list. Two other GABNet leaders--no vel ist, journalist Ninotchka Rosca and veteran activist Judith Mirkinson, both founders of GABNet--are reportedly on the same "hold" list and are likely to face the same restriction of movement. The GABNet 3 had attended the 10th bi-annual Women's Solidarity Affair in the Philippines (July 29-August 5, 2007). Dr. Enrile also led a University of Southern California immersion program.

"It's clear that the Philippine government, led by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is desperately trying to intimidate and silence international solidarity," GABNet Secretary General Doris Mendoza said, "especially those focusing on the countless human rights violations and political kil ling s. But our membership and allies are now even more determined. For us, this harrassment of the GABNet 3 re-confirms the undemocratic and unjust character of this US-backed Macapagal Arroyo regime."

GABNet is a Philippine-US women's solidarity mass organization established in 1989. It co-sponsored an all women human rights legal mission, led by the GABNet 3, to the Philippines last year. ###

http://www.bulatlat.com/node/463/print

Published on Bulatlat (http://www.bulatlat.com)

Woman Activist Held, Two Others in Watchlist

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 27, August 12-18, 2007

Balikbayan Dr. Annalisa Vicente Enrile was on her way back to the U.S. on Aug. 5 after a month’s stay in the Philippines. However, as she proceeded to the Immigration booth to have her passport exit-stamped, she was told that she could not get on the plane because she was on the “watchlist.”

Enrile is the chairperson of GABRIELA Network USA (GABNet), a U.S.-based women’s group affiliated with the militant women’s group GABRIELA and the progressive partylist group Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP). She is also a professor at the University of Southern California.

In a press conference Aug. 11in Quezon City, Enrile said she believes she is being held because of her involvement with GABRIELA and for being part of a team that went to the country to probe the human rights record of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration.

“I’m being held hostage,” Enrile told the media. “I cannot go back to my work and my family.”

The run-around

After being told that she could not proceed to board her flight, Enrile said she was “sent and shuffled from one department to another.”

At the Immigration, she was told to get clearance from the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID).

On Aug. 6 at the BID, Enrile was told to file an Affidavit of Denial.

On Aug. 7, the BID told Enrile to get clearance from the Department of Justice (DoJ). At the DoJ, she was told to get another clearance from the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA). But at the NICA, she was directed to return to the BID.

On Aug. 8 at the BID, Enrile was redirected to the DoJ.

Enrile then sought the assistance of the Chief of American Citizens Service (CACS) at the U.S. Embassy who committed to help her.

The CACS gave the same message to American human rights activist and GABNet International Relations Officer Judith Mirkinson who went with Enrile at the embassy. Enrile, Mirkinson and renowned international journalist Ninotchka Rosca are said to have been in the government’s watchlist.

Intimidation tactic

Rosca said the watchlist is an “intimidation tactic” by the Philippine government against “all overseas Filipinos who continue to love and fight for this country.”

“I am exceedingly irritated with the watchlist which has infringed into my private time with my family,” Rosca said. Rosca said she is here to attend the Women’s International Solidarity Affair in the Philippines which was held from July 30 to August 5, 2007, to launch her latest book and to visit her 98-year old mother.

No charges

Meanwhile, GWP Rep. Liza Maza said the hold order against the three women activists is a serious matter which can be a precedent to gauge the effectivity of the Human Security Act of 2007 (HSA 2007), the newly passed anti-terror law.

“Before the HSA, nobody cannot be held without charges,” Maza explained. But with the HSA, Maza said anybody can be held on mere suspicion. “This makes this incident dangerous,” she added.

“This is pure political harassment undermining GABRIELA’s international work,” the partylist representative said. GWP, which was able to land two seats in the House of Representatives, topped the partylist votes of absentee voter’s in the 2007 mid-term elections.

Rosca and Mirkinson are scheduled to leave the country on Aug. 14. “We hope not to be held at the airport and we’ll make sure Dr. Enrile is coming with us,” Rosca said. Bulatlat

UCB 1st Annual Pacific Islander Higher Education Recruitment Program: Mufi O: Hyphening it up for higher education (July 26 & 27)

2007-07-14T15:28:00.001-07:00

Click to Enlarge

Anti-Discrimination in High Schools

2007-07-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

While SAFEHS focuses on issues of human slavery, we value human rights at all levels -- including anti-discrimination work that impacts queer youths who are also vulnerable to multiple forms of violence.

I received this through a list-serv and feel that its important to share some of the work that is going on to protect Queer youth.

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

For nearly three years Nancy W. went to extreme measures to protect herself at high school. Fearing for her safety, she stopped using the school restroom, and avoided the hallways by walking outside between classes. On an almost daily basis she was tormented at school – verbally harassed by other students who threw bottles and other objects at her, pushed her down a flight of stairs, stole her books - and on one occasion urinated in her book-bag! After repeatedly reporting these incidents to the school’s administration and being ignored, Nancy was forced to leave school in the middle of her Junior year. Nancy faced all of this because she’s a lesbian.

Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on Nancy’s behalf based on a state law that prohibits sexual orientation discrimination in schools. Lambda Legal is fighting a battle against discrimination for Nancy and for other LGBTQ students around the country, and they need our help to win cases like these! You can start by going to: http://go.care2.com/e/sAzw/ku63/_cR4

This anti-discrimination case is only one example of the many cases on which Lambda Legal is currently working. Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.

In 1996, Lambda Legal won a case similar to Nancy W's. The landmark victory of Nabozny vs. Podlesny created a ripple effect around the country, holding schools nationwide accountable when they fail to protect their students from anti-gay harassment. Without the donations of people like you, these precedent-setting victories would not be possible. To support Lambda Legal's work, donate today at: http://go.care2.com/e/sAzw/ku63/_cR4

Discrimination in the workplace can be as harmful as discrimination at school. Did you know that only 17 states and the District of Columbia have laws protecting gay and lesbian employees from discrimination, or that only nine states and the District of Columbia prohibit discrimination based on gender identity? Nancy's case brings relief and protection not only to her, it also brings hope to the many LGBT people who are facing harassment at work or school across the country. One case can change thousands of lives. That's impact, and that's what Lambda Legal does.

Support Lambda Legal today >>

Every day, throughout the country, Lambda Legal is making the case for equality at home, at school, at work – wherever discrimination occurs. Whether it’s making a future with your partner, protecting your loved ones or making the grade at school, Lambda Legal leads the fight so all of us – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, people with HIV and allies - can live our lives and pursue our dreams without having to face barriers because of who we are.

Help Lambda Legal fight for full equality across the nation. Lambda Legal’s work ultimately benefits all people, because it helps build a society that is truly diverse and fair – so it is up to all of us to help them fulfill their important mission. Thank you for giving generously!

San Francisco Fight Human Trafficking: Human Trafficking Film Screening & Dialogue

2007-06-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

Surviving Chongshindae Urge Canadian MPs to Support Motion 291

2007-06-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

The history of the Chongshindae continues to be a struggle. I recently received this through a friend who has asked everyone to support the Sharing House initiative. The Sharing House is a historic site as well a place that houses survivors of Japanese militarized prostitution of approximately 200,000 women in which it's estimated that 80% were Korean. Japan's continued denial of these atrocities are furthered in which women/children that were trafficked into the Japanese military camps were labeled as "military supplies" an attempt to invisibilize this history.

Below is the petition and two articles.

______________________________________________________________

Please help urge your friends to sign the petition to tell the Canadian MPs to support Motion 291 which reads:"That, in the opinion of the House, the government should urge the Prime Minister and the Parliament of Japan to: (a) pass a resolution in the Dietto formally apologize to the women who were coerced into military sexualslavery during the Second World War and were euphemized as "comfort women"by the Japanese Imperial Army; and (b) to provide just and honorable compensation to these victims."We need to gather 50,000 signatures to be presented to the Canadian MPs for their action.

< http://www.alpha-toronto.org/petition>Click here to tell Your MPs to vote YES to "Comfort Women" Motion 291Please help forward this email to 20 friends and encourage them to sign thepetition ASAP. Thank you.Thekla LitPresident of B.C. ALPHA Co-chair of Canada ALPHA(Association for Learning & Preserving the History of WWII in Asia)http://www.alpha-canada.org/

______________________________________________________________

U.S. Unhappy with Japanese Comfort Women Ad

A source in Washington said on Saturday that the White House and U.S.Congress are displeased by a newspaper ad from 63 Japanese lawmakers that denied the Japanese government and military had a hand in conscripting women from Asian countries as sex slaves for the Imperial Army during World WarII. The source said the Bush administration and Congress are likely to address the full-page ad, which appeared in the Washington Post on Thursday. The White House is expected to express its opposition to the ad's claims that several countries set up brothels during the war to prevent soldiers from raping civilians and that the U.S. requested "comfort stations" from the Japanese government after it occupied Japan in 1945. According to the source, Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on a visit to Japan earlier this year that the historical issue cannot be allowed to disrupt the stability of Northeast Asia, expressed his displeasure with the ad and ordered an investigation into how it was made. The ad is expected to boost the chances that the House will adopt aresolution calling on Japan to apologize to the former sex slaves. Some congressmen are said to be unhappy with the attempt by the Japanese lawmakers to distort historical facts. Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said on Saturday at a fundraising event in Los Angeles that the resolutionwill be brought up at a regular session of the committee next Tuesday. Lantos said he expected the resolution to pass by a majority.

( englishnews@chosun.com )Copyright (c) 2000 <http://www.chosun.com/homepage/html/index_e.html > The Chosun Ilbo & Digital Chosun Ilbo All rights reserved.

______________________________________________________________

Japanese denial angers 'comfort woman'
June 15, 2007 - 7:44PM

An Australian woman forced into sex slavery in World War II says she's trembling with anger at a Japanese government advertisement denying the war-time atrocities. Adelaide resident Jan Ruff-O'Herne says she has lost all respect for the Japanese government after the advertisement appeared in the Washington Post newspaper. The ad, signed by 44 members of Japan's parliament, seeks to share "the truth with the American people" about the 200,000 "comfort women" who were driven into brothels during WWII. "No historical document has ever been found by historians or research organisations that positively demonstrates that women were forced against their will into prostitution by the Japanese army," the ad said under the title, in bold letters, "THE FACTS". Ms Ruff-O'Herne said she was appalled by the advertisement."My esteem for the Japanese government has completely gone down the drain," she said. "It's absolutely appalling, I'm trembling with anger. I just can't believe it, I am so angry that after all these years and so much proof they could do that."

The 84-year-old Adelaide woman travelled to Washington DC in February tospeak before a US House of Representatives hearing on Protecting the HumanRights of "comfort women".
"I myself went to Washington, would I do that at my age if it wasn't true -it is true, we were forced," she said.

"What evidence can they produce that we have not been forced? They haven't got any evidence because we were forced. They must be absolutely crazy, Japan is not owning up to their historicalresponsibilities.Comfort women are never going to give up, we want Japan to apologise and acknowledge the war crimes they committed. I have forgiven them for what they did to me, but I can never forget. I was put on a truck and driven away, torn away from my family and put in abrothel to be raped day and night."

A lobby group, Friends of Comfort Women in Australia, was also angered by the advertisement. "Numerous testimonies by survivors clearly identify the "comfort women"system as that of military sexual slavery from which they never sought nor awarded any payment," the group said in a statement to AAP. The ad was signed by professors, journalists, political commentators and 29 members of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, 13 from the Democratic Party of Japan and two independents.

"The ianfu (comfort women) who were embedded with the Japanese army were not, as is commonly reported, 'sex slaves'," the ad said. "They were working under a system of licensed prostitution that was commonplace around the world at the time," it said, adding many of the womenmade more money than field officers "and even generals". Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sparked controversy in March by saying there was no evidence the imperial army directly coerced thousands of"comfort women" into brothels across Asia during WWII. Abe has since stressed he stands by Japan's landmark 1993 apology to thewomen, and expressed his deep sympathy for the women during a US visit inlate April.

Fairfax Digital Copyright 2007 The Age Company Ltd <http://www.theage.com.au/> .--Sharing House VolunteersContacts:Jyoung-Ah Kim 016-9444-5683Heather Evans 010-9928-8850comfortwomen.wordpress.com

Volunteering for SAFEHS

2007-06-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in volunteering with SAFEHS please contact: Annie Fukushima at annie@safehs.com

We look forward to having you a part of the team.

For More information about SAFEHS visit our website

HUMAN TRAFFICKING & U.S. YOUTH

2007-06-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

To return to SAFEHS website

While slavery dates back to the founding of the U.S. and was abolished in 1865 with the passage of the 13th amendment, modern day slavery preservers globally as well as in the U.S.

To combat modern day slavery, the U.S. passed the 1999 Trafficking Victims Protection Act that was reauthorized in 2006 as the TVPRA.

1) Sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or
coercion or in which the person induced to perform such an act is under 18,
or
2) The recruitment, harboring,
transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services,
through the use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of subjecting that
person to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

Prostitution and human trafficking are interlinked systems of oppression of sexism, racism, classism, heterosexism at its extreme. Most vulnerable to human trafficking and prostitution are those most vulnerable in the U.S.: women of color, queers of color, and youth. However, this is not to perpetuate stereotypes about prostitution/human trafficking, but rather, to point to trends.

Youth: ECPAT USA (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes)', an Anti-Trafficking agency, states that the average age of entry into street prostitution is between 12 and 14 years old, though there have been cases of girls as young as 9 years old. The U.N. defines a child as anyone under the age of 18 years-old, and therefore, I use it interchangeably with youth.

Global Trends: ECPAT also estimates that over one million children are trafficked across the globe every year for sexual purposes. It is estimated that 10 million children around the world are subject to sexual exploitation. ECPAT use the term commercial sexual exploitation of children (or CSEC) to describe the various activities that exploit children for their commercial value including child sex tourism, child prostitution, child pornography and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes.

The U.S.: The CIA estimates 50,000 women and children are transported each year throughout the United States by being conned and forced into a life of sexual exploitation. The FBI estimates that the average age of a prostitute in the United States is 13. Various studies say 300,000-800,000 youths are at risk of sexual exploitation[1].

In San Francisco, studies have illustrated that 68% of prostitutes enter before age of 16, and this number increases to 78% for those before the age of 18 years.[2]

Internet Violence: Donna M. Hughes work on internet and pornography conveys that the global revolution of communications, access to information and media has also been utilized to facilitate sexually exploit women and girls locally, nationally, and transnationally.

In 2005, the CyberTipline received notice of a grand total of 70,737 incidents. The bulk came from 64,221 incidents of child pornography, including possession, manufacture and distribution. In 2000, 77 percent of the child pornography cases were internet related.[3]

Based on these incidents, also noted were 2,669 reported incidents of online enticement of children for sexual acts, 611 for unsolicited obscene material sent to a child, 841 misleading domain names, 1,640 reports of child sexual molestation by other than family members, 553 of child prostitution and 202 for child sex tourism. This practice involves adults traveling to foreign countries to engage in sexual activity with children. It is estimated to draw more than one million children into the sex trade each year from countries that have been historically constructed as "Third World".[4] In order to understand sex tourism in general, a suggested read is Cynthia Enloe's Bananas, Beaches, and Bases.

In April 2003, a significant milestone was reached when Congress passed the Protect Act (Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003), which was subsequently signed into law.

To learn about new local bay area initiatives please visit: www.safehs.com

or sign up with our listserv

More questions contact Annie Fukushima at annie@safehs.com

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

[1] Judy Keen, USA Today. “Child-prostitution cases reveal cruel underworld.” July 26, 2006. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-07-26-prostitution-crackdown_x.htm
[2] Silbert, MH and Pines, AM. “Entrance into prostitution,” Youth and Society 13 (4): 471-500, 1982.
[3] Interview with Raymond Smith, Fraud, Child Exploitation and Asset Forfeiture
Group, Office of Criminal Investigations, U.S. Postal Inspection Service (May 7, 2001).

[4] Alexandra DeFelice. “The Growing Cancer of Child Sexual Exploitation on the Web.” MacNewsWorld. April 25, 2006. http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/must-read/50135.html

Ella Baker Center Iniative: Know your Rights Youth Conference

2007-06-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

Bay Area PoliceWatch is holding its 2nd annual Know Your Rights Youth Conference on July 14th, from 12-4pm here at the Ella Baker Center office. The goals of the conference are to:

Supply young people with the knowledge of their rights when interacting with the police and other law enforcement officials;
Provide young people with knowledge of the juvenile justice system and how it operates;
Arm young people with the tools needed to develop strong, self-sufficient communities where egregious crimes will not be allowed to thrive.

[Click here to register]

There will be two main topics covered in 2 workshops:

Know your rights when interacting with the police

Know your rights in regards to the juvenile justice system

Join us for an afternoon of knowledge, enlightenment, inspiration and entertainment. The deadline is July 1st and space is limited, so register early.

[Click here to register]

Guest Lecturer Positions for SAFEHS

2007-06-17T21:33:00.000-07:00

SAFEHS is currently looking for graduate art students or individuals who have an MFA to guest lecture. If you are interested and would like to be emailed the job description, email: annie@safehs.com

To subscribe to our mailing list visit: www.safehs.com

Students & Artists Fighting To End Human Slavery

2007-06-12T23:00:00.000-07:00

Please visit:
www.safehs.com

Human Sex Trafficking Conference: Raising Awareness in Social Service Communities

2007-03-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

Human Sex Trafficking Conference: Raising Awareness in Social Service Communities

Date: March 12th, 2007
Time: 8:30am to 4:30pm
Place: San Francisco State University
1600 Holloway Avenue
Cesar Chavez Building 3rd Floor, Jack Adams Hall

8:30-9:00 Registration/light breakfast

9:00-9:15 Welcome/Introductions
Dina Redman, MSW, MPH, PhD, Assistant Professor,
San Francisco State School of Social Work
Damian Ochoa, MSW Student, S.F. State School of Social Work
Juhye Park, MSW Student, S.F. State School of Social Work

9:15-10:30 Sex Trafficking Overview
Norma Hotaling, Founder and Executive Director,
Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE)

10:30-10:40 Break

10:40-12:00 Psychological Trauma Caused by Being Trafficked
Into Prostitution
Melissa Farley PhD, Director, Prostitution Research & Education

12:00-1:00 Lunch-on your own

1:00-1:20 SAGE Documentary- Survivors’ Testimonials

1:20-2:10 Transnational Methods & Critical Race Lens: Deconstructing Racism in the Global Sex Industry Through the Experience of Asian Sex-Exploitation & Trafficking
Annie Fukushima, Doctoral Student/Activist, Ethnic Studies, U.C. Berkeley

2:10-2:20 Break

2:20-3:30 Legal & Advocacy Panel

Moderator: Damian Ochoa
Panelists:
Kala Bokelman, Special Agent, Diplomatic Security Service, United States Department of State, San Francisco
Kenneth Stocker, Inspector, San Francisco Police Department
Marianne Barrett, Assistant District Attorney, San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, San Francisco
Thea Tremain, Victim Advocate, Victim Services Division, San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, San Francisco
Leena Khandwala, Appellate Advocacy Fellow, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies

3:30-4:20 Community Assessment & Program Planning Panel

Moderator: Damian Ochoa
Panelists:
Nayeli Cerpas, Rosalyn Moya, Charles Ramilos, & Teresa Shartel, MPH Students, SFSU Department of Health Education
Norma Hotaling, Founder and Executive Director, SAGE
Melissa Farley PhD, Director, Prostitution Research & Education

4:20-4:30 Closing Remarks and Evaluations
Dina Redman, Damian Ochoa, & Juhye Park

"Detecting the Undetected: Revealing Asian Human Trafficking in California"

2007-03-08T02:02:00.000-08:00

Sex Trafficking Obliteration Petition (S.T.O.P) Campaign Panel
"Detecting the Undetected: Revealing Asian Human Trafficking in California"

When: Thursday, March 8, 2007,
7:00 – 9:00 pm

Where: Heller Lounge at UC Berkeley (corner of Telegraph Ave and BancroftAve)

Keynote Speaker: Norma Hotaling, CEO of Standing Against Globalization and Exploitation (SAGE)

Panelists will be discussing about human trafficking in the Bay Area and the type of services provided for Asian trafficking survivors in theBay Area.*

Speakers and organizations include:

- Annie Fukushima - Ethnic Studies Doctoral Student
- Joseph Fong - SF Police Department
- Orchid Pusey - Asian Women's Shelter
- Judith Mirkinson - Gabriela Network

Doors open at 6:30 pm for meeting participating organizations. * Refreshments will be provided.The S.T.O.P Campaign panel is part of the Gender Equity Resource Center'sWomen's History Month Series, celebrating women across the world.

YouTubeVideos - Dec. 2. Girls brought in to McGonigle Canyon and have sex with migrant customers

2007-03-07T22:53:00.001-08:00

YouTubeVideos - Dec. 2. Girls brought in to McGonigle Canyon and have sex with migrant customers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwvgtfpgokQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrPjxsG9djE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIXFfjxk03Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I87iO7RtJRU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7h9JHqE5Rs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=727GSoLHLXI

PRESS RELEASE JOHN MONTI, SAVE OUR STATE, 323-474-4402

February 28, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GRAND JURY RECEIVES COMPLAINT OF POLICE INACTION TO STOP SEX TRAFFICKING AND PROSTITUTION

San Diego, California – Save Our State member John Monti will file a grand jury complaint on Thursday, March 1, 2007 asking that the county grand jury investigate the San Diego Police Department's (SDPD) response to continued prostitution and human trafficking occurring in Rancho Penasquitos. He will meet the press outside of the Hall of Justice on 330 W. Broadway, San Diego, CA at 10:00 a.m. on March 1, 2007 after the complaint is formally filed to answer questions and distribute footage of the December 2, 2006 incident.

This complaint was prompted by police actions on December 2, 2006 when San Diego Police Department officers were called to investigate prostitution in McGonigle Canyon. The officers refused to investigate and when shown where girls were hiding in the brush, they refused to enter the thicket to talk to the girls to investigate their situation.

In the context of the human trafficking and forced prostitution problems that San Diego County has been found to have, Mr. Monti believes that San Diego Police Department is egregiously ignoring its duty to defend the most weak and vulnerable – women and children. It is believed that this is more than just the dereliction of duty of two police officers, but instead strikes at the modus operandi of the migrant liaison officers and the command element of the SDPD in the Northern and Northeastern Divisions of SDPD.

The complaint will ask for an investigation of why the SDPD has refused to acknowledge and investigate the existence of prostitution and human trafficking in Rancho Penasquitos in spite of numerous eyewitness reports and information provided by the local migrants.

Imagining Bodies

2007-03-01T21:27:00.001-08:00

22nd Empowering Women of Color Conference: Our Bodies, Our Souls: Sistahood, Health and Healing

Workshop Title: Imagining Bodies: De-centering Women's Bodies in the Sex Industry, (Re)Centering the Demand
Presenter: Annie Fukushima, Doctoral Student - Ethnic Studies & Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, & Sexuality

Location: West Madrone, MLK at UC Berkeley
Time: 11:15AM - 12:15PM, Workshop Series II

Summary
Through conversation/a dialogical experience the goal of this workshop is to engage participants in an in depth conversation about popular assumptions of women in the sex industry. The first half of the session we will explore through visual art a (re)imagining of bodies in the sex industry. The second half of this dialectical experience is to (re)center the demand, commonly referred to as "Johns" or "Clients".

For more Details please visit: http://ewocc.berkeley.edu/home.php

This year's conference will feature a community health panel, vendors, cultural performances, workshops on a variety of health and spirituality-related topics, and keynote speaker Mililani Trask, a renowned leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and an internationally acclaimed political speaker and attorney.

Orphans and Human Trafficking

2007-03-01T17:21:00.000-08:00

Miramed Institute
http://www.miramedinstitute.org/

Aid to Children Without Parents
http://www.acwp.org/

In the past week I recently learned about these two organizations whose missions parallel, but in different parts of the globe. Miramed Institute focuses on helping orphaned children in Russia and ACWP focuses on orphaned children in South East Asia.

Their continuities lay in the global dilemma and concern of who is most vulnerable in processes of exploitation: children. These two organizations are integral to understanding human trafficking in the United States that has become increasingly focused on two migratory patterns of trafficking: South Eat Asia and South East Europe. In order to deconstruct/combat human trafficking here in the states necessitates a transnational lens that not only focuses on the demand but the status of the source countries. These two organizations provide what I would like to call the necessary hope in the anti-trafficking movement: organizations who focus on the most vulnerable and impressionable: youth/children. While each countries racialization differs and the commodification of white bodies and asian bodies are to phenomenons that can not be seen as the same, the globalization of human trafficking is evident.

A Testimony of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery during WWII

2007-02-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

The experiences of the Chongshindae is remembered by many Koreans today; although only recently was this a story that went from a source of shame, to outrage, and testimonial. She symbolizes the survivor of colonization, where the Japanese government endorsed the forced prostitution of thousands of Korean women. Korea’s constant warfare with Japan ended with Japanese annexation of Korea (1910). During the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) the Japanese Imperial Army first recruited military prostitutes. Testimonies indicate that twenty of thirty women recruited were Korean women. According to Alice Chai’s 1993 essay “Asian-Pacific Feminist Coalition Politics: The Chongshindae/Jungunianfu (‘Comfort Woman’) Movement,” military prostitution became an official large-scale operation in the Nanjing Massacre of December 1937. Women were recruited to prevent the Japanese soldiers from gang-raping women in the occupied territories in Manchuria. The Japanese government was reluctant to release Japanese prostitutes; procurers were hesitant in providing Japanese prostitutes in large numbers. The spread of venereal disease among Japanese prostitutes and soldiers led to the drafting of Korean women. This story highlights the racist/sexist attitudes of the Korean woman as dispensable. While this history appears to be one of the past, it is very much a part of our present. Current representations of Koreans are that of the exotic, hyper-sexualized bodies. I recall while talking with a colleague about bar girls, he said "I thought all bar girls are Koreans." While some bar girls are Korean, she too is diverse, but this stereotype, among many, suggests that she is presumably, often Korean. The connection, a history of exploitation continues, where the end of Japanese military sex exploitation did not end: the U.S. set up military camp towns in Korea, where surrounding these areas hostess bars popped up. These bars were venues for trafficking where many women ended up in Hawaii and the continental U.S. This testimonial is a remembering for me, of the Korean woman that is exploited because of race and sex -- it is a memory, re-memory, that she survives.

As Long As I Live
A Testimony of Japanese Military Sexual Slavery during WWII
February 12, 2007
7:30pm-9:30pm
University of California, Berkeley
Heller Lounge
MLK Jr. Student Union
Berkeley, CA 94720

Koon-ja Kim, 81, was among an estimated
200,000 girls forced to serve Japanese
soldiers as sexual slaves from 1937 to 1945.
Called "comfort women" these girls were as
young as 15.

The event will provide a rare chance to
listen to a firsthand account of an
overlooked part of history and crime against
humanity.

Koon-ja is one of the women featured in the
documentary lm, "The House of Sharing."

Co-presented by Asian American Studies Program at University of California, Berkeley
and California Institute of the Arts

Why Have the Number of Italian clients in Nigeria gone down?

2007-01-26T19:14:00.000-08:00

Today I had the opportunity of attending a series of presentation put together by the Tourism Studies Working Group at Berkeley. The series sponsored a speaker, Florence Babb, “Love for Sale: Sex, Sentiment, and Tourism in Contemporary Cuba.” Incredibly insightful, Babb provided an anthropologist's perspective of sex tourism that may also be defined as romantic love. The sex tourist industry developed in the 1990s during Cuba's economic crisis. The question of the day from my own positioning was that there was a notable decrease in Italian tourists, male tourists, in recent years. Historically, throughout the 1990s Italians were primary tourists/sex tourists. The question brought to the table is why? It is evident in this case what Kamala Kempadoo called "push-down, pop-up" where, the government is cracking down on prostitution which leads to it pushing down in some areas and popping up else where, as a theory does not work. Although prostitution is illegal in Cuba, the Cuban government is not cracking down on prostitution. In part, as delineated in the series lecture, it is the government's focus on tourism as a point of increasing the Cuban economy, which includes sex tourism. Thus, the question continues to be, why the decline? My response is that there is a need to utilize a transnational feminist lens, in which we need to look towards Italy to understand this decline.

In order to understand this decline, we must look towards Italy. With the easing of borders, 500,000 women and children are trafficked yearly through European countries, with 50,000 to 70,000 ending up in Italy. In 2004, BBC featured a series on Albanians being trafficked through Italy to western Europe and many eventually ending up in the UK. Most are girls ages 14-18 years old, mainly from Romania, West Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. This suggests that Italians no longer need to leave in order to seek services or if you want to call it "companionship." In May of 2006, Italian police dismantled prostitution rings that brought women from Uruguay under the operation, "Montevideo" reinforces the notion that the Latina may now be found in Italy. The women/girls, 50 of them rescued, were brought through Milan over the past three years. However, the extocization of the Latina is not merely any Latina, but also inclusive of the Afro-Cuban. In Italy there is an increasing demand for Black bodies, where 60 percent of women trafficked in Italy are from Algeria. However, these women are treated differently under dire conditions in contrast to their European counterparts: they earn 40-50% less for sexual services -- this is not suggesting that they get any of their "earnings."

Nonetheless, while all is interesting, one note of comparison that I find useful to share: A significant portion of the talk was dedicated to the notion that the women/girls were not considered prostitutes, and that there is a difference: these girls were looking for love, for possibility of leaving Cuba. However, I would like us to remember, so were many of the women who worked in Korean hostess bars in Korea: they too, were searching for a way out of Korea to "America." While many of them only found another version of the America Town in Korea, only in the U.S., why is it then that the Koreans were prostitutes and the Cubans, women/men in search of love?

The answer to this is multiple, but I hope it will allow us to think about the way differing bodies are racialized in the industry and also to consider how communities themselves endorse through rhetoric/denial. In this space of condoning in Cuba reinscribes a society of also condoning violence in essence, through silences and by calling it "romance".

Remembering Bodies In Monuments

2007-01-24T21:27:00.000-08:00

"In many countries, prostitutes struggle and people have no respect for them whatsoever. The statue is meant to give all those men and women strength," Mariska Majoor, a former prostitute who commissioned the statue

Amsterdam's Red Light district unveiled a model of a bronze statue to "honour" prostitutes of the world. Else Rijerse designed a "strong female figure standing in a frame - a doorway or a window - reached by a small set of steps." But whose face is she? Does she also commemorate the one third of the window brothels that the Amsterdam City Council announced in December of 2006 as fronts for trafficking -- where a majority of the women in Amsterdam's industry are not from Amsterdam?

Does she commemorate the violences that happen? In 2006 BBC quoted a prostitute, "For all of you non-prostitutes out there talking about us women who have sold sex, you have to realise that the damage to us is massive. Financial help, a few encouraging words, won't do it. Sticking us in 'tolerance zones' won't do it. Maybe ongoing psychological care, over a period of many years, will help? I don't know. Maybe there is really no escape from this rape prison called prostitution?" Does this statute with hands on her hips at a door way, commemorate the experiences of this woman who considers prostitution a "rape prison"?

Does she allow us to remember these violences? When Maya Lin made the Vietnam War Memorial, she commemorated the individuals, the names, in a continuum of space. How does one body commemorate millions, where "she" is already sexed, leaving out the "him" and transgendered community that we should also remember. And her body, does she commemorate the bodies of children who also fall prey to human trafficking/prostitution, where traffickers/pimps wait at the doorways of runaway homes, and for some like those as delineated in the film Born Into Brothels, grow up in brothels, in violence, chained with the visible chains of a history of colonization, tourism, militarization, and violence that we refuse to see -- especially in our own back yard, the United States.

Art is expression, but it is also translation... Translating the experiences, the day-to-day, the real, life at your door. Does this monument really remember the bodies of the world's prostitute? Or merely one person's perspective of who the world's prostitute is, not the majority, the masses, the many who die, never remembered, forgotten by enforcement, poor/no penalties, social services that lack resources, and the "you" that dismiss it as a problem/"reality" that will "always exist."

Sex Slaves: Inside the World of Human Trafficking

2007-01-24T21:14:00.000-08:00

Sex Slaves: Inside the World of Human Trafficking

Jan 25, 2007
5PM Omni San Francisco 500 California Street
Ric Bienstock
Award-Winning Filmmaker

Ric Bienstock is a writer, producer, and director of
documentary films that explore the human spirit through first
hand accounts. She will preview her acclaimed documentary, Sex
Slaves, which provides an informative and chilling look at the
trafficking of women from the former Soviet bloc into the
global sex trade. Written, directed and produced by Bienstock,
the film aired recently on PBS to record ratings and won
several awards including Best of Festival at the U.N.
Documentary Film Festival. Karen Musalo, Director, Center for
Gender and Refugee Studies will moderate.

Reserve tickets online by January 24, 2007

Event will be held at the Omni San Francisco Hotel, 500
California Street, San Francisco
5 p.m. - Registration and Reception
6 p.m. - Program

Tickets: $25 per person, $20 Museum members, $15 Students

Parking: Hotel valet parking; Shorenstein Garage, 555
California St.;343 Sansome Parking Garage

Near Montgomery Bart/Muni Stations

The Speaker Series program is designed to bring together
notable women from around the world to discuss current global
issues and how they are creating social, political and economic
change in the lives of women worldwide.

For more information, visit www.imow.org or call 415.487.6447

Screening Born Into Brothels at UC Berkeley

2007-01-23T22:01:00.000-08:00

Narika at Berkeley, a new student group whose goal is to increase awareness, education and dialogue surrounding issues of violences that impact our community is hosting a film screening of Born Into Brothels. Join us in a dialogue over food and good company in engaging with issues of sexuality, prostitution, human trafficking, filmic representation, racism, and sexism, and any other issue that may arise in our conversations.

Film Screening: Born Into Brothels

4:30PM, February 1, 2007

at the Gender Equity Resource Center, 202 Cesar Chavez Student Center

Thank you to our Sponsoring Groups: Narika, Ala Meda County, Gender Equity, and ASAPA.

If you or someone you know is a South Asian survivor of human trafficking or domestic abuse/violences please visit: http://www.narika.org or call 1-800-215-7308
to receive language specific services (Staff and volunteers speak Bangla, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Marwadi, Punjabi, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu)

or

In general, if you or someone you know is a survivor of human trafficking, Call the Asian Anti-Trafficking Coalition: 1 800-567-6211