Women Religious Seek MPs Support in Fight Against Trafficking of Humans
Published: September 07, 2008
What do Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Women, Australian women religious and women trafficked in Cebu in the Philippines have in common? They all share a concern for the human rights of people who are trafficked and a commitment to make a difference.
Women religious, members of a major Australian anti-trafficking lobby group (ACRATH), will be in Canberra from September 15-19 visiting MPs and social justice advocates to tackle human trafficking issues in Australia.
Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) represents 180 religious orders in Australia working to eliminate human trafficking in Australia, the Asia Pacific and internationally.
The two main aims of the week-long Canberra trip are to lobby for changes to the visa regulations applied to people who are trafficked and to ensure adequate services are provided once a person has been recognised as trafficked.
The Chair of ACRATH, Sr Pauline Coll sgs, said the Rudd Government should be applauded for its willingness to work with civil society on this issue. However, she said much more needed to be done to ensure that people trafficked into Australia were treated justly.
ACRATH members will lobby Government on several issues, including:
* Allocation of visas to people trafficked into Australia on the basis of their human rights and not on the basis of their willingness to assist with prosecutions.
* An amnesty for people trafficked into Australia who are now living here illegally.
* Assurances that the Federal Government tender for services for people who have been trafficked is administered to offer a holistic approach to each person's needs.
* A comprehensive community education strategy.
* Utilisation of the sisters' international networks, where appropriate, for prevention repatriation strategies.
ACRATH members will meet with more than 40 MPs, including Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Status of Women; Bob Debus, Minister for Home Affairs. They will also meet with representatives from various government departments.
ACRATH is one of a growing number of coalitions in Australia, including Melbourne-based Project Respect and the Sydney based Anti-Slavery Project, which is working for a greater community awareness of human trafficking. Many people associate trafficking with Asia. However, there is a growing awareness of trafficking into Australia.
Sr Pauline referred to the recent High Court decision which has provided a definition of slavery in the 21st century; it also recognised that what has happened to the women in the case being considered was a crime against humanity. Sr Pauline also referred to recent Australian media reports of trafficking and labour exploitation, and the trafficking of children for adoption.
Sr Pauline has recently returned to Australia from Congress 2008 in Rome. The international congress involved religious congregations from 30 countries including Australia. The participants agreed to maximise efforts and mobilise resources on the issue of human trafficking; they resolved to educate, prevent, protect and assist, and to have a greater social and political impact.
"This congress really made a commitment, and strengthened the determination of women in religious orders around the world, to work together to prevent the trafficking of humans," Sr Pauline said.
"We have come to Canberra as part of this strengthened commitment and we will keep coming and talking to those with influence until a more just system is in place and until this issue is a priority for policy makers."
If you would more information about ACRATH's work, trafficking in Australia or the visit to Canberra, please contact the following people:
Sr Pauline Coll sgs 0417 498 880
Sr Stancea Vichie mss 0438 116 689
or visit link for Radio Broadcast http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/programguide/stories/200809/s2365630.htm
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord.
CathNews - a Service of Church Resources
Call for amnesty for trafficked womenPublished: September 17, 2008The Federal Government should provide an amnesty for victims of trafficking now living illegally in Australia, a coalition of Catholic women religious says.
The Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) coalition says many people from the Asia-Pacific region are brought to Australia to work in the sex industry or in sweatshops or other forms of slave labour, Radio Australia reports.
Good Samaritan Sr Pauline Coll said victims should be treated in a more compassionate manner.
"If its for sexual exploitation many of the women come from the Asian countries, for other labour practices we would have people from the Pacific islands...so it's a broad ranging thing and people are trafficked into Australia or are used here in slave like conditions," she said.
Sr Coll was speaking ahead of a visit to Canberra this week by ACRATH members who will be in Canberra to meet with MPs and social justice advocates.
ACRATH represents 180 religious orders in Australia working to eliminate human trafficking in Australia, the Asia Pacific and internationally, the group said in a media statement.
The two main aims of the week long Canberra trip are to lobby for changes to the visa regulations applied to people who are trafficked and to ensure adequate services are provided once a person has been recognised as trafficked.
Sr Coll, who chairs ACRATH, said the Rudd Government should be applauded for its willingness to work with civil society on this issue. However, she said much more needed to be done to ensure that people trafficked into Australia were treated justly.
ACRATH members will lobby Government on several issues, including allocation of visas to people trafficked into Australia on the basis of their human rights and not on the basis of their willingness to assist with prosecutions.
The group is also calling for an amnesty for people trafficked into Australia who are now living here illegally and is seeking assurances that the Federal Government tender for services for people who have been trafficked is administered to offer a holistic approach to each person's needs.
A comprehensive community education strategy is also needed.
Sr Coll cited a recent Australian High Court decision which has provided a definition of slavery in the 21st century and recognised that what has happened to the women in the case being considered was a crime against humanity.
She has recently returned to Australia from Congress 2008 in Rome with representatives of religious congregations from 30 countries including Australia.
"This congress really made a commitment, and strengthened the determination of women in religious orders around the world, to work together to prevent the trafficking of humans," Sr Pauline said.
"We have come to Canberra as part of this strengthened commitment and we will keep coming and talking to those with influence until a more just system is in place and until this issue is a priority for policy makers," she said.
SOURCE
Calls for amnesty for people trafficked into Australia (Radio Australia, 16/9/08)
Women Religious Seek MPs Support in Fight Against Trafficking of Humans (Media Release, ACRATH, 16/9/08)
ACRATH (Good Shepherd Sisters)
Jonah 1:1-2:1. You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord. Jonah 2:3-5,8. Luke 104:25-37.
Call for amnesty for trafficked womenPublished: September 17, 2008The Federal Government should provide an amnesty for victims of trafficking now living illegally in Australia, a coalition of Catholic women religious says.
The Australian Catholic Religious Against Trafficking in Humans (ACRATH) coalition says many people from the Asia-Pacific region are brought to Australia to work in the sex industry or in sweatshops or other forms of slave labour, Radio Australia reports.
Good Samaritan Sr Pauline Coll said victims should be treated in a more compassionate manner.
"If its for sexual exploitation many of the women come from the Asian countries, for other labour practices we would have people from the Pacific islands...so it's a broad ranging thing and people are trafficked into Australia or are used here in slave like conditions," she said.
Sr Coll was speaking ahead of a visit to Canberra this week by ACRATH members who will be in Canberra to meet with MPs and social justice advocates.
ACRATH represents 180 religious orders in Australia working to eliminate human trafficking in Australia, the Asia Pacific and internationally, the group said in a media statement.
The two main aims of the week long Canberra trip are to lobby for changes to the visa regulations applied to people who are trafficked and to ensure adequate services are provided once a person has been recognised as trafficked.
Sr Coll, who chairs ACRATH, said the Rudd Government should be applauded for its willingness to work with civil society on this issue. However, she said much more needed to be done to ensure that people trafficked into Australia were treated justly.
ACRATH members will lobby Government on several issues, including allocation of visas to people trafficked into Australia on the basis of their human rights and not on the basis of their willingness to assist with prosecutions.
The group is also calling for an amnesty for people trafficked into Australia who are now living here illegally and is seeking assurances that the Federal Government tender for services for people who have been trafficked is administered to offer a holistic approach to each person's needs.
A comprehensive community education strategy is also needed.
Sr Coll cited a recent Australian High Court decision which has provided a definition of slavery in the 21st century and recognised that what has happened to the women in the case being considered was a crime against humanity.
She has recently returned to Australia from Congress 2008 in Rome with representatives of religious congregations from 30 countries including Australia.
"This congress really made a commitment, and strengthened the determination of women in religious orders around the world, to work together to prevent the trafficking of humans," Sr Pauline said.
"We have come to Canberra as part of this strengthened commitment and we will keep coming and talking to those with influence until a more just system is in place and until this issue is a priority for policy makers," she said.
SOURCE
Calls for amnesty for people trafficked into Australia (Radio Australia, 16/9/08)
Women Religious Seek MPs Support in Fight Against Trafficking of Humans (Media Release, ACRATH, 16/9/08)
ACRATH (Good Shepherd Sisters)
Jonah 1:1-2:1. You will rescue my life from the pit, O Lord. Jonah 2:3-5,8. Luke 104:25-37.
Monday, September 15, 2008
STORIES from WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION (WHO)
Trafficked women commonly report seeing their traffickers bribe local officials. One victim explained how she and her trafficker were transported through a border crossing by police in a police vehicle. When trafficked women were returned to authorities in an African country, it used to be common practice to show their faces on television and in news media as a prevention strategy to warn the public about trafficking. Consequently, many of the portrayed victims were shamed and rejected by their families and their communities.
A woman in a destination country prison who spoke with an NGO and agreed to give evidence against her traffickers subsequently found a note on her prison bunk threatening her life and the lives of her children in her country of origin.
A woman in a destination country prison who spoke with an NGO and agreed to give evidence against her traffickers subsequently found a note on her prison bunk threatening her life and the lives of her children in her country of origin.
Report from a Federal US Prosecutor
By Tom Paquette
FEDERAL PROSECUTOR CAROLINE WITTCOFF: “Under-reporting is the main problem in apprehending and prosecuting human traffickers. Victims are afraid to run away or report their captors to authorities out of fear for their own lives or the lives of their loved ones. As trafficking rings have ties all the way back to their home countries, this is a very real danger.” she was a teenager from an impoverished village in Bangladesh. The American couple offered her transport to America and a better life: a nice job as their nanny and housekeeper, wages and opportunity. The dream offer dissolved into a nightmare as soon as she reached sunny Southern California. The couple informed her she owed them a huge sum for bringing her into the country and forced her to work without wages for years in their home. There she was repeatedly raped and beaten by the husband and abused by the wife. After three failed attempts, and with the help of good samaritans, she finally escaped.
This is just one of the stunning, real-life anecdotes recounted in a series of “Slavery Today” panel discussions on the multibillion-dollar human trafficking industry which, experts say, has grown to epidemic levels in Southern California.
The panels, sponsored by the Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance and held in Hollywood, recognized the United Nations International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition. At the kick-off event, Lynsey Bartilson, star of the WB network’s “Grounded for Life,” told attendees, “The modern day slave trade is largely sexual trafficking, which Hollywood glamorizes in movies like ’Pretty Woman,’ but the harsh reality is that most of the girls involved are sold into a life of slavery.”
FEDERAL PROSECUTOR CAROLINE WITTCOFF: “Under-reporting is the main problem in apprehending and prosecuting human traffickers. Victims are afraid to run away or report their captors to authorities out of fear for their own lives or the lives of their loved ones. As trafficking rings have ties all the way back to their home countries, this is a very real danger.” she was a teenager from an impoverished village in Bangladesh. The American couple offered her transport to America and a better life: a nice job as their nanny and housekeeper, wages and opportunity. The dream offer dissolved into a nightmare as soon as she reached sunny Southern California. The couple informed her she owed them a huge sum for bringing her into the country and forced her to work without wages for years in their home. There she was repeatedly raped and beaten by the husband and abused by the wife. After three failed attempts, and with the help of good samaritans, she finally escaped.
This is just one of the stunning, real-life anecdotes recounted in a series of “Slavery Today” panel discussions on the multibillion-dollar human trafficking industry which, experts say, has grown to epidemic levels in Southern California.
The panels, sponsored by the Foundation for Human Rights and Tolerance and held in Hollywood, recognized the United Nations International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition. At the kick-off event, Lynsey Bartilson, star of the WB network’s “Grounded for Life,” told attendees, “The modern day slave trade is largely sexual trafficking, which Hollywood glamorizes in movies like ’Pretty Woman,’ but the harsh reality is that most of the girls involved are sold into a life of slavery.”
Numbers on the Rise
"Globalization’s Underside" Sex Trafficking in Brooklyn
by Claire Hoffman
August/September 2003
The pitch was like a dream come true. For $3,000 each, the three desperate young Indonesian women would receive falsified visas, airline tickets from Jakarta and restaurant jobs when they got to New York. A man named "Johnny" would meet them at the airport and arrange their housing.
But once the women got off the plane, it didn’t take long to see that Johnny had other ideas. He and his friends hustled them off to brothels, first in Connecticut and then in Brooklyn, while threatening to shoot them if they refused to be prostitutes. Over four lurid days, the women were repeatedly forced to have sex with men who paid their captors $140 for each 45 minutes. Johnny also told each woman that she owed him $30,000, and he started making arrangements to "sell" them to other brothels in New York and Boston.
As this case suggests, the sordid business of human trafficking, which includes enslavement in agricultural work, sweatshops, domestic labor and prostitution, is rapidly expanding. And with its growing immigrant population, experts say, parts of New York City, including Brooklyn and Queens, have become hotspots in a trade that the International Labor Organization has described as the "underside of globalization."
The State Department recently estimated that close to 700,000 people are moved through the global networks of human trade each year, and some officials believe that as many as 50,000 of those people are brought to the United States. And while authorities are trying to staunch the flow— "Johnny" and two of his confederates pleaded guilty to federal slavery charges last fall— critics say that the crackdown on visa violators since the September 11th terror attacks has made it harder to get victims and witnesses to come forward to talk about the slave trade.
"It is incredible how big of a business it is," said Christa Stewart, the director of SAFE Horizons, a Manhattan-based non-profit organization that has expanded its outreach from domestic violence victims to women who have been enslaved. She and other advocates said a fundamental tragedy of this crime is that the victims, like the Indonesian women initially were trying to change their lives, were hopeful and courageous enough to leave everything behind in search of a new life.
To read more of this article go to Website below:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/fea/20071001/202/2304
Money to be Made
Huge profits ensure human trafficking has become the world's top rights issue
Vienna, Austria: Trafficking people for forced labour and sexual slavery has become the world's number two most lucrative crime, and terrorists are using shadowy underground networks to move around, a senior US counter-trafficking official warned yesterday.Human trafficking, particularly the smuggling and enslavement of young women for prostitution, is tied with weapons smuggling as the second-largest illegal moneymaking activity, said T March Bell, the US Justice Department's senior special counsel for trafficking issues and civil rights.Only the narcotics trade reaps more profits for organised crime, but traffickers are earning billions of dollars exploiting tens of millions of victims each year, Bell said, calling it "the No 1 human rights issue today".The profits are huge, he told reporters, citing the example of a brothel owner in Southeast Asia who typically might pay$8 000 for a young woman. "We think that owner can make a $200 000 profit on that $8 000 investment," Bell said.Although the traffickers are dealing mainly with young women peddled to brothels or men, women and children sold into virtual slavery on farms and in factories, "they're moving any kind of people for a price", Bell said.Despite the massive scale of the crime, law enforcement agencies are having a difficult time bringing perpetrators to justice - in part because of corruption within their own ranks.In the former Yugoslavia, there have been numerous cases of corrupt local police officers engaged directly in the sex trade or willing to alert a bordello operator to an impending police raid in exchange for a bribe.Police officers in many poor, developing countries where trafficking is widespread tend to be poorly paid, making them particularly susceptible to bribes, Bell said. In Cambodia, theaverage officer earns just $35 a month, he said.Local and national police agencies are trying to counter that by improving the training of police officers, ensuring they are paid professional salaries, and making anti-trafficking units the envy of police forces by equipping them with the latest technology and holding them to higher standards, Bell said.While the most effective weapon against traffickers is "street-level law enforcement", police agencies increasingly are turning to undercover operations in an effort to infiltrate clandestine rings, he said.In the United States and many European countries, former victims are getting increased protection and refugee status in the hopes of persuading them to testify against their former captors, Bell said.A key challenge is winning the trust of former victims who all too often are "frightened, scared, intimidated and coerced" by traffickers."Unless a victim feels safe, they're not going to provide much information to prosecute the perpetrators," he said.
Published on the web by Cape Times on January 26, 2005.
Vienna, Austria: Trafficking people for forced labour and sexual slavery has become the world's number two most lucrative crime, and terrorists are using shadowy underground networks to move around, a senior US counter-trafficking official warned yesterday.Human trafficking, particularly the smuggling and enslavement of young women for prostitution, is tied with weapons smuggling as the second-largest illegal moneymaking activity, said T March Bell, the US Justice Department's senior special counsel for trafficking issues and civil rights.Only the narcotics trade reaps more profits for organised crime, but traffickers are earning billions of dollars exploiting tens of millions of victims each year, Bell said, calling it "the No 1 human rights issue today".The profits are huge, he told reporters, citing the example of a brothel owner in Southeast Asia who typically might pay$8 000 for a young woman. "We think that owner can make a $200 000 profit on that $8 000 investment," Bell said.Although the traffickers are dealing mainly with young women peddled to brothels or men, women and children sold into virtual slavery on farms and in factories, "they're moving any kind of people for a price", Bell said.Despite the massive scale of the crime, law enforcement agencies are having a difficult time bringing perpetrators to justice - in part because of corruption within their own ranks.In the former Yugoslavia, there have been numerous cases of corrupt local police officers engaged directly in the sex trade or willing to alert a bordello operator to an impending police raid in exchange for a bribe.Police officers in many poor, developing countries where trafficking is widespread tend to be poorly paid, making them particularly susceptible to bribes, Bell said. In Cambodia, theaverage officer earns just $35 a month, he said.Local and national police agencies are trying to counter that by improving the training of police officers, ensuring they are paid professional salaries, and making anti-trafficking units the envy of police forces by equipping them with the latest technology and holding them to higher standards, Bell said.While the most effective weapon against traffickers is "street-level law enforcement", police agencies increasingly are turning to undercover operations in an effort to infiltrate clandestine rings, he said.In the United States and many European countries, former victims are getting increased protection and refugee status in the hopes of persuading them to testify against their former captors, Bell said.A key challenge is winning the trust of former victims who all too often are "frightened, scared, intimidated and coerced" by traffickers."Unless a victim feels safe, they're not going to provide much information to prosecute the perpetrators," he said.
Published on the web by Cape Times on January 26, 2005.
U.S. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
International Women's Shelters Conference.
Wed, September 10, 2008
There are 800 delegates -- mostly women but a few good men -- at this week's conference of shelter workers and they all have incredible stories.
Ece Tuncay, who gave a presentation yesterday, is a clinical psychologist with a shelter in Ankara, Turkey, for female victims of human trafficking. There is another in Istanbul and they are desperately needed because Turkey is a destination country for trafficked women from countries like Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldova.
The women are tricked into thinking they'll work as cooks or cleaners and then forced into prostitution, said Tuncay.
"They are not generally able to escape because a pimp always accompanies them."
But there are hotlines the women can call and, in a strange twist of fate, Turkish johns sometimes feel sorry for them and call the police to rescue them, added Tuncay.
Her group gets the trafficked women safe housing and counselling. Then, with the help of the International Organization for Migration, the women travel safely home.
Every woman saved is a success story. As Reimer, the prime organizer behind this incredible gathering, commented to the delegates Monday night, shelter workers toil in the middle of a "hurricane of suffering" to keep women alive.
No other profession, she added, sees such a constant reminder of men's inhumanity to women.
I give the last word to Smith who quipped to the hundreds of shelter workers: "I look forward to the day when we all have something else to do in our lives."
Jan Reimer, provincial co-ordinator of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters
-Edmonton Sun
Wed, September 10, 2008
There are 800 delegates -- mostly women but a few good men -- at this week's conference of shelter workers and they all have incredible stories.
Ece Tuncay, who gave a presentation yesterday, is a clinical psychologist with a shelter in Ankara, Turkey, for female victims of human trafficking. There is another in Istanbul and they are desperately needed because Turkey is a destination country for trafficked women from countries like Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Moldova.
The women are tricked into thinking they'll work as cooks or cleaners and then forced into prostitution, said Tuncay.
"They are not generally able to escape because a pimp always accompanies them."
But there are hotlines the women can call and, in a strange twist of fate, Turkish johns sometimes feel sorry for them and call the police to rescue them, added Tuncay.
Her group gets the trafficked women safe housing and counselling. Then, with the help of the International Organization for Migration, the women travel safely home.
Every woman saved is a success story. As Reimer, the prime organizer behind this incredible gathering, commented to the delegates Monday night, shelter workers toil in the middle of a "hurricane of suffering" to keep women alive.
No other profession, she added, sees such a constant reminder of men's inhumanity to women.
I give the last word to Smith who quipped to the hundreds of shelter workers: "I look forward to the day when we all have something else to do in our lives."
Jan Reimer, provincial co-ordinator of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters
-Edmonton Sun
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