Modern Slavery News Round-Up

Obama rails against 'modern slavery' of trafficking 

US President Barack Obama has decried human trafficking as "modern slavery", while outlining new measures to tackle the problem. He called trafficking an "outrage", in remarks to an annual global forum organized by ex-President Bill Clinton. International efforts were needed to help more than 20 million trafficking victims, said Mr Obama. As he spoke, the White House unveiled steps to stop trafficking in government contracting, including overseas. The administration's executive order also announced new training programmes for prosecutors, police officials and immigration judges, among others. In Tuesday's speech to the Clinton Global Initiative, Mr Obama said that human trafficking "must be called by its true name: modern slavery". Victims included abused workers who toil for little pay, boys who are turned into child soldiers, and girls sold into the sex trade. "It is barbaric and it is evil and it has no place in a civilised world," Mr Obama said.

 

Uzbek government breaks promise to end child labor in cotton fields

Uzbekistan’s prime minister pledged last month to end child labor in the country’s cotton fields. But as the harvest season gets under way, human rights activists say children as young as 13 are being put to work under grueling conditions, despite extreme measures to recruit adult labor. “Every year, from the beginning of the first days of September, the entire country is immersed in a cotton hysteria,” said Hakim,a human rights activist based in Tashkent, who asked his last name not be used for fear of persecution. “Urban residents are in a panic looking for a way to escape slavery and not be sent to work.”

Fact Sheet: Executive Order Strengthening Protections Against Trafficking in Persons in Federal Contracts
 More than 20 million men, women, and children worldwide are victims of human trafficking.  Companies around the world are taking steps to eliminate the potential for trafficked labor in their operations and supply chains, and President Obama is committed to protecting vulnerable individuals as government contractors and subcontractors perform vital services and manufacture goods procured by the United States.  As the largest single purchaser of goods and services in the world, the U.S. Government has a responsibility to combat human trafficking at home and abroad, and to ensure American tax dollars do not contribute to this affront to human dignity.

India slowly confronts epidemic of missing children
 They are boys like Irfan, drugged and abducted at the age of 9 by two men on a motorbike as he walked home one day after playing with friends. “It was living hell these past two years, trying to figure out where we could find him,” said his father, Iqbal Ali. “I used to run a biscuit bakery, but from the day he disappeared, I got so caught up trying to meet politicians, police and people who claim to do magic to get children back, that I had to shut down my bakery. I had no time for it.” More than 90,000 children are officially reported missing every year, according to data compiled and released late last year by leading children’s rights group Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which showed the problem was far greater than previously thought. Up to 10 times that number are trafficked, according to the group...It is an epidemic that, until a few years ago, remained unreported and largely ignored by the authorities. 

Anti-Human Trafficking Legislation Becomes Law
Some 65,000 children were lured into the sex trade in California between 2009 and 2010, yet only 13 people were ever sent to prison human traffic during that time. Governor Jerry Brown has signed legislation to help prevent sex trafficking crimes involving minors in California. Authored by Senator Mark Leno, D-San Rafael, and signed into law Monday, the bill gives prosecutors new tools to help ensure that criminals who are convicted of sex trafficking crimes are denied access to the resources, equipment, and cash flow that would allow them to operate and commit future crimes.

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.