Modern Slavery News Round-Up

New RCMP Unit Being Created to Fight Human-Trafficking: In Canada, the federal Public Safety Minister, Steven Blaney, indicates that a new Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) unit has been created with the main goal of collaborating with law enforcement partners to fight human trafficking locally and internationally. A major task of the RCMP is to spread awareness of the issue among the younger generation and members of indigenous populations.


Eritrea's Military is Trafficking the Nation's Children, Report Says: In the Human Trafficking Cycle: Sinai and Beyond, a report compiled by Dutch and Swedish researchers, the authors shed a light on a nefarious practice targeting Eritrea’s most vulnerable: “Eritrean youths are being kidnapped by senior military officers, smuggled into Sudan and held to ransom.” The victims are tortured and their screams played to families on mobile phones. Some are able to raise funds and are freed, but others are not so lucky and end up being sold to Bedouin traffickers in Sinai.

Men Freed after 'Slavery' Raids in Bristol Area: In a pre-planned raid of eight properties in three travelers’ sites near Bristol, England, law enforcement agencies have rescued three men believed to be victims and arrested seven persons on suspicion of trafficking, three women and four men. The operation is viewed as an example UK’s commitment to fighting the crime of modern day slavery.

How Text Messages Help the Polaris Project Zero in on Human Trafficking: A few months ago, a worker monitoring a hotline for the Polaris Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to combating human trafficking, received a text message from an 18-year-old woman in distress. The woman, a sex-trade worker, was trapped in a motel room with her pimp and she secretly used his mobile phone to send a text seeking help. The Washington-based group moved quickly to alert authorities, who ultimately arrested the pimp.

Fact: UK Anti-Slavery Day, October 18th

Today the United Kingdom celebrates, Anti-Slavery Day, which falls on 18 October each year. The day provides an opportunity to draw attention to the subject and to pressurize government, local authorities, public institutions and private and public companies to address the scale and scope of human trafficking.

The Anti-Slavery Day Bill became law in 2010. It was introduced in Parliament as a Private Members Bill by Anthony Steen MP for Totnes, South Devon, in 2010 and passed through both Houses, unopposed although amended. The bill defines modern-day slavery as child trafficking, forced labour, domestic servitude and trafficking for sexual exploitation.

Modern Slavery News Round-Up

With A Phone Call, Truckers Can Fight Sex Trafficking
Eight years ago, Willis Wolfswinkel, a truck driver, was parked at a travel center near Detroit when he made a phone calll that changed a life. He called 911 after having two young girls knock on his truck door, bothered by something about those girls. It turns out that Wolfswinkel's phone call marked the beginning of a major investigation. If You See Something, Say Something
 You can also listen to the story. Just click the link.

 Cuts Threaten Scotland Yard's Anti-Trafficking Unit
The future of Scotland Yard's pioneering anti-trafficking unit is uncertain less than a year after David Cameron promised to make Britain a "world leader" in the fight against people smuggling. Senior police sources have voiced fears that the Metropolitan police's flagship trafficking unit, the human exploitation and organized crime command (SCD9), may be forced to lose specialist officers due to budget constraints.  Government figures showed the number being trafficked into the UK was rising. But immigration minister Mark Harper warned that the number of those being prosecuted was still "not enough".

Child Labor Concerns Across Hershey's Supply Chain Prove it Pays to be Proactive

In early October, Whole Foods Market said it has haltered orders of Scharffen Berger chocolates - one of The Hershey Company's artisan chocolate brands - over concerns about child labor in Hershey's West African supply chain. Whole Foods says the chocolates will remain off store shelves "pending receiving further information from Hershey's." Whole Foods's decision came in response to a campaign organized by Raise the Bar, Hershey, a coalition made up of leading nonprofits and advocacy groups. Since 2010, Raise the Bar has mobilized more than 150,000 consumers to send emails, talk store managers, and post handbills at stores around the country demanding that Hershey be held accountable for child labor in its supply chain.

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.