The Reality of Organ Trafficking

Americans are obsessed with health. We burn fat and sweat toxins out with the latest exercise videos, and fitness gyms are an institution. Yet despite our best efforts, our bodies eventually age and begin to fall apart. The health issues many Americans are faced with are diabetes or high blood pressure, both of which are among the biggest causes of kidney failure in America. Kidney problems often lead to dialysis and ultimately the need for a transplant.

As of October 25, 98,463 people in the United States were waiting for a kidney transplant while only 16,500 transplants have been performed this year. Compounding the shortage of organs, a new name is added to the transplant list every 10 minutes. Those who cannot receive a kidney have three options: ongoing dialysis, death or the black market for organs.

With the exception of Iran, all counties have ruled the act of paying an organ donor as illegal. Nevertheless, when their own lives or the lives of loved ones are on the line, 75% of people would consider paying someone for a kidney . The grim realization is that often, they have no problems finding people who would help them. In 2009, for example, a Brooklyn businessman was accused of trying to sell a kidney for $160,000. In June 2012, a Serbian man tried to sell his kidney for nearly $40,000 on the Internet after losing his job. Considering the aforementioned examples, it seems sadly inevitable that desperation breeds profit.

The sources of the organs do not have to be volunteers and indeed often are not. In China, executed prisoners have been the source of transplants for years. Indeed, estimates reveals that the majority of organs needed for transplants have traditionally come from executed prisoners. Cultural biases against the removal of organs after death make it hard to establish a completely voluntary process. The big gap between demand and supply maintains the Chinese government's practice of obtaining organs for transplants from executed prisoners. Various human rights organizations have reported that China executes more prisoners than any other nation and questions arise as to whether the executions are really a form of justice or whether they simply address the problem of not enough organ donors. The lack of donors has also fueled a thriving black market in trafficking organs.

A similarly big issue is the growth of transplant tourism around the world and the resulting booming business of organ trafficking. Medieaseindia provides many services including kidney transplants at relatively inexpensive prices. Compare their $18,000 cost to the $60,000 price tag in the United States and it is easy to understand the allure of traveling abroad for a chance to life. On the sellers' side, poverty contributes greatly to one's likelihood to sell an organ, specifically kidneys. The problem arises when many of the "volunteers" interested in selling an organ to save another person's life are found not to actually be volunteers.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the commercialization of human organs is "a violation of human rights and human dignities". In addition, the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons emphasizes that the trafficking of persons for the specific purpose of organ removal falls under the definition of human trafficking. Organ trafficking, therefore, is a serious issue that demands the attention of local, state and international authorities. The crime takes place in the form of three broad categories: 1) traffickers force or coerce vulnerable people to "donate" an organ; 2) vulnerable people volunteer to sell an organ but are subsequently deceived by traffickers and receive no payment or less than what was promised; and 3) vulnerable people are brought in for treatment and have their organs removed without consent or knowledge (UN GIFT, 2013).

To understand the intricacies of the crime of organ trafficking, we recommend watching the Tales from the Organ Trade, an HBO documentary exploring all aspects of the problem. Although the known number of organ trafficking victims is relatively small, that is precisely why we must attack the issue now. With increased research and legal oversight, we can address the roots of the problem before it spirals out of control. Surely the lives of both sick and healthy people are worth our engagement.

Fact: Little Known Facts About . . . Human Trafficking

1. Approximately 75-80% of human trafficking is for sex.
2. Researchers note that sex trafficking plays a major role in the spread of HIV.
3. There are more human slaves in the world today than ever before in history.
4. There are an estimated 27 million adults and 13 million children around the world who are victims of human trafficking.
5. Human trafficking not only involves sex and labor, but people are also trafficked for organ harvesting.
6. Human traffickers often use a Sudanese phrase “use a slave to catch slaves,” meaning traffickers send “broken-in girls” to recruit younger girls into the sex trade. Sex traffickers often train girls themselves, raping them and teaching them sex acts.
7. Eighty percent of North Koreans who escape into China are women. Nine out of 10 of those women become victims of human trafficking, often for sex. If the women complain, they are deported back to North Korea, where they are thrown into gulags or are executed.
8. An estimated 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die each year from abuse, disease, torture, and neglect. Eighty percent of those sold into sexual slavery are under 24, and some are as young as six years old.
9. Ludwig “Tarzan” Fainberg, a convicted trafficker, said, “You can buy a woman for $10,000 and make your money back in a week if she is pretty and young. Then everything else is profit.”
10. A human trafficker can earn 20 times what he or she paid for a girl. Provided the girl was not physically brutalized to the point of ruining her beauty, the pimp could sell her again for a greater price because he had trained her and broken her spirit, which saves future buyers the hassle. A 2003 study in the Netherlands found that, on average, a single sex slave earned her pimp at least $250,000 a year.

Modern Slavery News Round-Up

Young girls still at risk of being child brides in South Africa

In Limpopo, the system fails a young girl of thirteen who should be at school, but is sold off as a child bride to a 57-year-old sangoma, a traditional healer, by her struggling single mother of five to pay off supposed mounting bills. Child marriage continues to plague South Africa as in this case where the young child's rights are not protected by the courts who let off the sangoma once it was learned that the family had consented to the marriage.

China's child abduction by traffickers hard to curb leading officials and parents to social media
Despite authorities cracking down over the past two decades, child abduction is tough to eliminate. Officials claim the problem has become less prolific, but given the inconsistencies of data reporting, this is hard to substantiate. But Deng Fei, a Beijing-based journalist and prominent campaigner on behalf of victims and their families, believes the number of children being abducted is decreasing. Social media may have helped to reduce the crimes as in recent years, parents and activists have been using websites and microblogs to share information about cases and draw public attention to child abduction. Their efforts put pressure on the police, who have responded such as Chen Shiqu, the police official in charge of anti-trafficking, who has an account on Sina Weibo, one of China’s most popular microblog services. His account has 3.4m followers.

Syrian Refugee Women Exploited for Marriage
Lina Al Tiby, a Syrian activist living in Cairo, runs a support network for Syrian women refugees; helps them adapt to life in Egypt; and tries to persuade them not to allow poverty to push them into sex work or unwanted marriage. Arriving in Egypt with little more than the clothes they are wearing, some Syrian women see marriage as the only means of survival. "Egyptian men tell Syrian women they will marry them to help them and their families, but… can’t these men help Syrian women without marrying them?" said Al Tiby.

Eliminating human trafficking from the global business landscape
Businesses may unknowingly be associated with the crime of human trafficking when their suppliers, subcontractors, or partners supply materials or products that have been produced by trafficked persons. “In today’s globalized world, the risks of human trafficking in supply chains are significant throughout economic sectors and affect all States,” says Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons...Ezeilo recommends that all global businesses commit themselves to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and become signatories to the UN Global Compact. Ezeilo also urges businesses to exercise due diligence and conduct a risk assessment for their entire production chain in order to eliminate risks of human trafficking in their operations.


U.S. Agents Rescue Sex Slaves Through Data Fusion
Data-mining is proving a key tool for U.S. law enforcement to free sex slaves and to convict human traffickers involved in the $32 billion industry. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have rescued sex slaves by using software that identifies geographic locations by syncing financial transactions, phone records and other discordant data, ICE officials said at a Symposium to address immigration-related crime to technology companies; senior federal officials; and actress Mira Sorvino, the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador to combat human trafficking. Angie Salazar, an ICE section chief who investigates human smuggling and trafficking, confirmed that ICE was able to find victims of trafficking by using data to look for trends. Palantir, a data company that assists many U.S. intelligence agencies, helps ICE with investigations by flagging individuals and organizations.

Chinese Police Bust Trafficking Rings

 
On Christmas eve, the Public Security Ministry of China announced that they broke up nine child trafficking rings, rescuing 89 children and arresting 335 traffickers in an operation which covered nine provinces across the country. The investigations began last Decembers after four people were arrested in Henan province for trying to sell four babies. 

In the last decade, child-trafficking has become a major problem in China due to the strict "one-child" policy that puts a premium on baby boys and lax adoption laws. As a result, the country has a thriving black market for buying children. Majority of the children abducted across the country tend to be boys because of the traditional preference for male heirs in China. For instance, Su Qingcai, a tea farmer in China, confessed to buying a 5 year-old boy for about $3,500 in a article on child-trafficking in the New York Times. Mr. Su justified his purchase by stating that "a girl is just not as good as a son. It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you don't have a son, you are not as good as other people have one." There are many people like Mr. Sue that fuel the illegal buying and selling of boys across China. As a result, child snatchings has become the most common method of kidnapping for traffickers. In 2009, a 9-month-old baby boy was grabbed by someone in a moving vehicle while a shopkeeper lost his son after he turend away for a while to help a customer.

In addition, adoptions by foreigners has increased profits for traffickers and led to widespread kidnappings. According to the Chinese government, 10,000 children are kidnapped each year, but some experts state that the number far exceeds this estimate. According to Chen Shique, director of the anti-traffiking office in the Public Security Ministry, police have broken up 11,000 child trafficking rings and rescued 54,000 Children since 2009. The intitaive by the Chinese government to crackdown on child-traffickers is good but they must also focus on labor and sex trafficking as they are also widespread across the counrty.

Source:  The New York Times
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Modern Slavery News Round-Up

Human trafficking legislation added to defense bill
U.S. Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rob Portman of Ohio co-chair the bipartisan Senate Caucus to End Human Trafficking. With the assistance and influence of their efforts, the Senate voted to add the End Human Trafficking in Government Contracting Act to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013. A few months ago, President Obama signed an executive order that prohibits government contractors and subcontractors from engaging in activities tied to trafficking.

Car wash accused of using forced labor
Five people were detained by Chinese police for suspicion of forced labor at the Guangliang Car Service in the Hedong district of Tianjin. The police rescued eleven workers, including a mentally disabled man who had been working at the car wash since August and claimed that he had been beaten. Another mentally disabled man was rescued by his brother, but has not received his salary, unlike some of the other rescued workers.

Bonded labour ensnares entire families in Afghanistan
Bonded labour in brick kilns is one of the most common forms of hazardous labour in Afghanistan. Over half of the brick kiln workers are children, most of them are under 14 years old and have been working at the kilns since they were about 7 or 8 years old. So much time is spent working at the kilns that most of the children do not obtain an education. Families are often tied to the kilns because of their needs to pay off loans. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), 64% of the families surveyed had worked in the kilns for at least 11 years, while 35% had worked in the kilns for over 20 years.  

Modern Slavery News Round-Up

Awareness Of Human Trafficking Is Increasing, But 'So Is The Problem' 

Every day, men, women, and children around the world are stripped of their basic rights and trafficked as sex workers, forced laborers, involuntary servants, or for their organs. The International Labor Organization estimates that human trafficking -- fed by poverty and corruption and facilitated by organized crime -- victimizes more than 20 million people globally. On the sidelines of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Economic and Environmental Forum in Prague, RFE/RL correspondent Richard Solash spoke with Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, the OSCE special representative for combating trafficking in human beings, on the latest trends in the battle against the epidemic.

China Contractor Again Faces Labor Issue on iPhones

As Apple [prepared] to unveil the latest iPhone this week, the company’s manufacturing partner in China, Foxconn Technology, is coming under renewed criticism over labor practices after reports that vocational students were being compelled to work at plants making iPhones and their components.  Foxconn has acknowledged using student “interns” on manufacturing lines, but says they are free to leave at any time. But two worker advocacy groups said Monday that they had spoken with students who said they had been forced by their teachers to assemble iPhones at a Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, in north-central China.

Trafficked children in UK council care 'going missing'

Some children trafficked into the UK are going missing from local authority care, a Council of Europe report says. It says there are indications that increasing numbers of people are being brought into the UK for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labour. The council raises particular concerns over a lack of secure and suitable accommodation for trafficked children who end up in local authority care.

It calls for better trained supervisors or foster carers for them. The Council of Europe's Greta (Group of Experts on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings) says reports suggest a "significant" number of trafficked children in local authority care go missing and some end up rejoining those who exploited them in the first place.

Romania, Bulgaria make trafficking cases priority
At least 540 Bulgarians were victims of human trafficking in 2011, while Romania investigated nearly 900 similar cases last year. The increase, attributed to sexual exploitation, confirms that the two countries remain both source and transit areas in teh region for such illegal activities, experts say. In Romania, the number of the cases in 2011 is up from 717 the previous year. At the same time, anti-human trafficking authorities indicted 480 persons in these cases, compared to 407 in 2010. More than 270 offenders were convicted, up from 203 two years ago. In Bulgaria, of the 112 offenders convicted last year, 95 received a court sentence for sex trafficking.

NGO founder 'shocked' at USAID 
An emotional Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda on Friday denied the charges filed against her by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) for allegedly falsifying documents to hide the misuse of at least P210 million ($5 million) in funds donated to the Visayas Forum Foundation Inc. (VFFI), a nongovernmental organization she founded in 1991. The VFFI president said she was “shocked by the malicious attack” on the NGO  that she had “built for 20 years with blood, sweat and tears,” but vowed to “continue to provide services for victims of exploitation and human trafficking” (and allow) “our body of work to speak for itself.”
The USAID asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in August to probe the foundation over funds for the group’s projects that it said were missing.

Prop. 35 gets tough on human traffickers
Chris Kelly, a former Facebook executive and 2010 Democratic candidate for attorney general, is bankrolling a November ballot measure that would stiffen penalties in California for human traffickers and create new requirements for sex offenders. Proposition 35, whose opponents have no formal organization or funding, would increase prison sentences for traffickers from five to eight years to 12 years to life, depending on the circumstances. It raises the maximum fines from $100,000 to $1.5 million and requires that the money be spent to help trafficking victims and to assist law enforcement agencies prevent trafficking and rescue victims.

Modern Slavery News Round-Up

Northern Ireland in bid to outlaw paying for sex
Paying for sex could become illegal in Northern Ireland if proposed changes in the law are introduced. The crackdown on prostitution is part of a range of measures contained in draft legislation aimed at tackling human trafficking and exploitation in the region. While activities such as kerb-crawling, pimping and brothel-keeping are illegal in the UK, selling or paying for sex is permitted.

Nepalese foreign work ban for young women
Many women worldwide leave their homelands for domestic work in other parts of the world. In the case of Nepal, an estimated 1,000 women make such journeys from their homes to the Middle East. However, due to cases of pregnancy, sexual abuse, rape and other forms of violence, the Nepalese government has instituted a ban that prohibits women under 30 from leaving the country in search of domestic work. Though the intent to protect these women is good, some fear that backlash will result in the form of lies about actual age, false passports, or other ways around the ban. 

Four men sent to prison for trafficking in women
Four men were sentenced to between eight and 14 years in prison for their involvement in 13 cases of human trafficking in which 14 women and one child were sold, Shanghai Xuhui District People's Court announced [August 17th]. A Yunnan Province Man, Huang Debin, was sentenced to 14 years for luring women to Suqian, Jiangsu Province, where they would be sold to men who had trouble finding wives, according to a news release from the court.

City lacks resources to help trafficking victims
Even after nearly a year of a statewide awareness campaign about human sex trafficking, there aren't resources in Chattanooga to help victims of the crime. During a news conference in Chattanooga in October, state officials, including Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn, called for action after a joint study with Vanderbuilt University revealed that 85 percent of Tennessee counties had reported a human trafficking case. Chattanooga had as many as 100 cases, according to figures released at the news conference.

Money laundering and human trafficking
The U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) recently launched Project STAMP (Smuggler Trafficker and Assets, Monies, and Proceeds) to combat human trafficking, and other illegal activities through anti-money laundering regulations. The project relies on stringent regulations and collaboration with private financial sectors to combat human trafficking int he U.S. Money laundering is a crime where perpetrators conceal the source of profits obtained through illegal activities like human trafficking. To continue carrying out illegal activities, traffickers often commit money laundering to disguise profits acquired by exploiting women and children.

By Whitney Joseph

Modern Slavery news Round-Up

Atlanta pimp gets life in prison
Atlanta pimp David pepe was sentenced to life in prison for "sexually abusing and pimping a teenage runaway...[He was] found guilty of trafficking of persons for sexual servitude, pimping, aggravated child molestation, enticing a child for indecent purposes and contributing to the delinquency of a minor."

US court awards damages to Pinay human trafficking victim
Elizabeth Cabitla Ballesteros, a former domestic worker for Colonel Arif Mohamed Saeed Mohamed Al-Ali, may receive damages from a civil suit against him. She was "[subjected to] involuntary servitude, forced labor, peonage, debt bondage, and slavery as a domestic worker..." Ballesteros was supposed to be paid in U.S dollars for work done five days a week. Colonel Al-Ali was acquitted of the criminal charges against him in 2011.
 
North Korea: Human traffickers and the Chinese Market for Brides
Steven Kim is an American businessman who assisted North Korean refugees assimilate into Chinese culture and society by providing them with safe houses, food, and money. He was caught, arrested, and convicted for helping illegal migrants in 2003, after which he spent four years in a Chinese prison. Eventually, a strong market for North Korean brides was created. The buyers are often farmers who just want a wife. The popularity of this also seems to be due to China's family-planning laws and actions such as abortion and infanticide have led to a very high male-to-female ratio.

Prison terms upheld in abuse of Afghan child bride
Observers are characterizing as a small victory the recent decision by an Afghan appeals court to uphold the 10-year prison sentences for three people convicted in the torture of a 13-year-old girl, Sahar Gul, sold into marriage. Gul, now 14, is recovering at a shelter for women in Kabul.

Modern Slavery News Round-Up

4 arrested in Florida foster child prostitution ring
Miami authorities are accusing four men of operating an underage prostitution ring.  Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle says most girls were 15 to 17 years old and were in foster care due to previous abuse.  The men lured these girls into the sex trade through cellphones, gifts of clothing and attention.  A problem across the country, these pimps shower girls with attention and then lure them into prostitution. Florida is the third most popular destination for domestic sex trafficking of minors and at least 300,000 children are at risk.

Ottawa bans sex trade business from hiring foreign workers
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced a ban on sex trade industry employees from hiring workers.  "We're protecting them from what they might not know will happen to them when they get to Canada," he explained at a press conference.  Citizenship and Immigration Canada will not process new work permit applications from temporary foreign workers who wish to work in places like a massage parlor, strip club or escort agency.  Representatives of the sex industry are considering challenging the new regulation.

Over 800 held after child-trafficking bust
An operation involving 10,000 Chinese police officers has broken up a child-trafficking ring that was operating in 15 provinces.  802 people where arrested who were selling babies to the highest bidder for up to 5,000 pounds (close to $8,000).  181 children were freed during raids that police say took place simultaneously across China. An unidentified police officer says they are managing the practice , but it's still prominent in certain areas.  However, since it's campaign to combat trafficking started in 2009, 24,000 kidnapped women and children have been rescued.

Forced Labor in Chinese Laogai Prisons in Tibet

In 1959, when China's Communist Party Liberation Army invaded Tibet, no family was left untouched.  Other than the very old and the very young, the majority of the Tibetan population was arrested at one moment or another.  Either for owning a picture of the Dalai Lama, or participating in peaceful protests, Tibetans have been, and continue to be, arrested, subject to hard labor and torture and even death.  Out of the 6 million people living in Tibet, 1.2 million have died as a result of their time within the Chinese Laogai prison system.  On Friday, June 8th, BTFF had the privilege to attend the Laogai Foundation's Conference on the sufferings of the Tibetan people in Chinese prisons.  We heard passionate speeches by Representatives Chris Smith and Frank Wolf, both of who have visited these prisons and their appalling practices, and the representative of the Dalai Lama.  However, perhaps the most moving part of the three-day event were the testimonies by seven survivors who were eventually released from the Laogai prisons and finally escaped from China's authoritative rule.  Here are excerpts from just a couple stories heard:

Thupten Khetsun is now 70 years old, but in 1959 at least five of his family members, including himself, were arrested.  While his mother was subject to political "reeducation" outside of confinment, Khetsun was placed into Drapchi prison for two years.  He and other political prisoners were required to either break open large stones or make bricks while only sustaining on barley soup.  "While I was at Drapchi prison, huge loads of clothes of dead prisoners from Chang Tsa-la-Kha were delivered.  There were enough winter jackets in there for half the prisoners of Drapchi.  I believe that the tortures and sufferings Tibetan political prisoners faced under China are comparable to those of Jews under Nazi Germany."

Ghan Lhamo gave her testimony on specific female political prisoners who suffered in the Laogai prisons.  One woman is called Phuntsok Zomkyi and was formally a Buddhist nun.  Between 30 and 40 nuns were arrested, including Lhamo, and received sentences between 4 and 8 years.  They were not allowed to go out, except for the occasional grave digging assignment and when she was finally released, Zomkyi fled to India.  "These female prisoners faced an extreme bout of torture and physical abuse in prisons and forced labor camps.  They were often tied up, handcuffed and thrown into seclusion cells.  A great number of female political prisoners were Buddhist nuns and were often sexually assaulted by the military police."

Since 2001, there have been 38 self-immolation by Tibetans as a direct protest to the authoritarian rule of the People's Republic of China.  The Laogai Foundation is an organization dedicated to gaining justice for these prisoners and spreading human rights around this part of the world.  They work through research and documentation to gain evidence against not only the Laogai prison system, but China's one-child policy and unauthorized organ harvesting as well.  Visit their website or the Laogai Museum in Washington, D.C. to learn more about this issue and what you can do to support these survivors and how to join their fight in eradicating human rights violations in China.