Police rescue 47 victims from human traffickers

Police have rescued 47 victims from human trafficking in South Africa's Limpopo province, authorities announced on Sunday. Acting on a tip, police launched a sting operation in Louis Trichardt and Thohoyandou on Saturday and rescued the victims who were detained against their will, said Limpopo police Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi. The 47 victims, all from Ethiopia, were in good health and had been taken to a place of safety, said Mulaudzi. Police arrested six people, one Indian and five Ethiopians, for their suspected involvement in human trafficking, he said. South Africa has remained a hot spot in Africa for human trafficking, but no official specific figures are given on how many people become victims to human trafficking in the country. The UN crime-fighting office said in a report last month that 2.4 million people across the globe are victims of human trafficking at any one time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves. About $32 billion are being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals running human trafficking networks, according to the report.

Source: http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2012-05/07/content_15221970.htm

Store Sells Fair Trade Products to Battle Slavery

Reegan Hill, owner of the new It's Only Fair store in Newport,
arranges some of her fair trade merchandise on a shelf.
(Amanda Joering Alley/The Community Recorder)

This Saturday, Reegan Hill is holding the grand opening of her new fair trade store, It’s Only Fair, at 123 East Ninth Street in Newport.

“About five years ago, I was completely ignorant about fair trade,” Hill said. “I had only heard that it was more expensive, but I didn’t really get it.”

Then, while at a concert Hill attended, the artist talked about fair trade and how people in America can use their buying power to benefit others throughout the world.

Hill said that speech opened her eyes, leading her to start researching fair trade, human trafficking and the slavery that still exists today.

“I was just amazed to learn that slavery still exists today and how bad it is for so many people,” Hill said. “The things I learned haunted me, and I reached a place where I knew I couldn’t just walk away from the issue.”

Hill said she started looking for ways she could help, and even traveled to other countries where she found nonprofit groups who rescued people from slavery and involuntary prostitution and taught them a trade, like making scarfs or jewelry, and paid them a fair wage.

These groups said one of their biggest needs was for people to take their products and sell them in America.

After getting the necessary licenses in place, Hill and her younger daughter Marissa, who has been her partner through her whole experience, bought some of the products and began selling them at parties and other events, gaining a dedicated following of customers.

About a year ago, Hill said she started thinking that opening a store would be an incredible next step.

Initially, Hill had planned to only offer products made by survivors in her store, but that plan changed when she visited India.

“When I saw that extreme poverty, I thought ‘we can rescue people all day long, but unless we can provide jobs for these vulnerable people, they’ll end up in the same situation,’” Hill said.

Hill, who lives in Covington, will offer everything from jewelry, bags and scarfs to coffee, tea and chocolate in her store.

Hill said since all the items have a story behind them, she has put up information and pictures on the walls, so people can really connect to what they’re buying.

Hill said she knows many people think just like she used to that fair trade products are far more expensive, but that many people are surprised when they find that her prices are pretty reasonable since she buys products directly from the nonprofit groups she’s connected with over the years.

Hill and her daughter are holding the grand opening of their store from noon to 6 p.m. on World Fair Trade Day, Saturday, May 12.

Hill said she hopes people will visit the store and help her change the world by changing the way they shop.

Hill said for her, purchasing and selling fair trade items is a way the she can prevent human trafficking.

“I think the beauty of our story is that it shows that average, ordinary people can make a difference in the world,” Hill said.

For more information about Hill and her experience, visitwww.inhisimagedesigns.org.

It’s Only Fair: 859-443-1079 or visit its Facebook page.

Fair trade coffee leads to higher satisfaction levels

If your cafe's struggling, this is the study for you. Massey University researchers have found customers of cafes that promote fair trade coffee in-store have higher satisfaction levels, and are

willing to pay more for their daily brew. 

Marketing senior lecturer Dr Andrew Murphy says fair trade coffee is becoming a routine purchase for an increasing number of New Zealanders, both in cafes and supermarkets.

He says it's still a premium rather than mainstream product, so it's a way for cafes to differentiate themselves if they want to attract a particular type of consumer.

The research comes as Oxfam is encouraging New Zealanders to give fair trade coffee a go during 'fair trade fortnight', which starts today.

Discuss Fair Trade at the official fair trade forums and engage in conversation!

credit: http://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/auckland/news/nbnat/1226811623-Fair-trade-coffee-leads-to-higher-satisfaction-levels

Sex Trafficking Victim Speaks

As part of GiRL FeST San Diego, a lecture and panel discussion was hosted at San Diego State Friday titled “War on Women: Human Trafficking in the U.S.” GiRL FeST is a nonprofit festival with the purpose of “changing peer culture in order to prevent increasing violence against women and girls through education, art and positive representations of women.”
The event began with a talk from sex trafficking survivor and former SDSU student Natasha Herzig, who gave an intense account of her abduction and time spent in the underground world of sex trafficking.
Herzig was coerced into the situation when a woman stopped her at the mall and told her of an opportunity to train to become a makeup artist. After meeting the woman and the company’s “boss,” she agreed to the job and at a meeting to file paperwork, she was physically taken and thrown into a car. She then began her two-year journey into forced prostitution.
In 2003, the FBI released a list of 13 high-intensity child sex trafficking cities that included San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The event also included a panel discussion focused on what changes need to occur. When asked if the media has a role in allowing these atrocities to happen, Managing Editor of 10News San Diego, JW August said, “The images people see make a very nasty thing acceptable.”
“We have begun to normalize what isn’t normal,” Executive Director of Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition Marisa Ugarte said.
All panelists referenced music with lyrics commonly containing phrases such as “pimp” and “ho.” They also noted the glamorization of the prostitute, as seen in films such as
“Pretty Woman,” when in reality “girls don’t ever see a penny,” Herzig said.
The panelists spoke about another complex issue regarding criminalizing sex traffickers. “The biggest problem with victims is that they’re lousy witnesses because they’ve been so traumatized,” August said.
Herzig expanded on August’s statement. After being trafficked for two years, she and two other girls working as prostitutes were taken into the police department. A “new girl” told them everything. Herzig was silent, and the girl with the most seniority in the prostitution ring fabricated a story to protect her and her trafficker.
“It’s hard first to be a victim, then to be a victim of sex trafficking … Let’s get to the point where we don’t have to arrest these kids in order to rescue them,” Herzig said.
While it is a sensitive subject, awareness is key in preventing the continuance of these crimes. Herzig encapsulated the event’s message by saying, “If we’re not talking about the issue, we’re not solving it.”

Source: http://www.thedailyaztec.com/2012/05/sex-trafficking-victim-speaks/

Fair Trade - It Makes a Difference!

Whether purchasing a fair trade shirt, fair trade coffee, tea or chocolate, each purchase makes a significant impact!

Fighting Poverty

Many of the developing worlds’ small farmers live in poverty, struggling to feed their families and to maintain ownership of their land. Hired workers are often denied basic employment rights and fair wages, unable to escape poverty no matter how hard they work. Fluctuations in world market prices often hit small producers the hardest because they don’t have the resources to absorb changes to their income that larger, industrial farms have. By joining together to create cooperatives, farmers are able to break this cycle and create safeguards for their own survival. Fair Trade Certified is a market-based model for alleviating global poverty—an alternative to dependency on aid—where farmers are given the tools to raise themselves out of poverty. Producers use premiums and revenue for social good in their communities, to help themselves and those around them.

Education

Impoverished farmers and workers often need their children to work in order to make enough to support the whole family. Fair Trade helps provide farming families with the income and stability they need to keep their children in school, instead of in the fields. From Nicaragua to India, farmer and worker associations have used Fair Trade funds to provide school supplies, pay for tuition and uniforms, set up scholarship programs, and finance free, healthy meals for children. Fair Trade revenues generated by the U.S. market have helped build schools and give the gift of education in some of the most historically isolated communities around the developing world.

Health Care

All around the world, small farmers and rural communities lack access to proper health care. Without proper medical care communities cannot thrive. Fair Trade standards require that farm workers and their families have access to doctors, medicine, proper nutrition, vaccinations and health education. Fair Trade farming cooperatives make decisions about what healthcare their communities need most, and many have elected to invest Fair Trade premiums into lifesaving health facilities and programs.

Protesters Target Hershey over Child Labor/Fair Trade Violations

While the Hershey Company hosts its Annual General Meeting Tuesday, May 1st, in Hershey, PA, as many as one hundred activists from Global Exchange, Green America, International Labor Rights Forum, all from the Raise The Bar Campaign to make Hershey fair trade, will join together with activists from the National Guestworker Alliance (NGA) as well as Metropolitan Community Church of Philadelphia (MCC-Philadelphia), ACT UP Philadelphia, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), protesting Hershey over an incident of AIDS discrimination at the Milton Hershey School, will descend on Hershey, PA to host a lively protest outside the company's AGM. The protest is set for Tuesday, May 1st from 9:30am to 11:30am (Eastern).

"Hershey needs to take corporate responsibility for their practices and we are demanding Hershey executives and trustees to stop exploiting children, students and workers as well as that the Milton Hershey School--funded by Hershey--reverse its decision to deny admission to an HIV-positive teen," said Jessica Reinhart, Grassroots Community Manager for AIDS Healthcare Foundation and a leader of several protests against Hershey over its AIDS discrimination. "We are honored to join again with MCC and Act Up Philadelphia to protest Hershey's AIDS discrimination and with the groups running Raise The Bar campaign targeting Hershey over fair trade and child labor issues as well as with NGA in their quest to protect Hershey workers and create local living wage jobs at the company in dignified conditions."

Background on Hershey School AIDS Discrimination

The Milton Hershey School--a boarding school for low-income students funded by the Hershey Company--recently rejected the boy for admission citing his HIV-positive status as the reason, misguidedly calling him a "direct threat to the health and safety of others." AHF has also launched a website www.EndHIVStigma.org where the public can learn more about the case, learn the facts about HIV/AIDS and send e-letters to three Hershey Company board members who also sit on the board of the Milton Hershey School Trust, urging them to denounce the discrimination and facilitate the boy's admission into the school.

"The blatant discrimination and ignorance displayed by Hershey in this case is simply unacceptable. Ultimately, it is the Hershey Company itself, as the main funder of the school, that must answer for the decision not to admit the boy--a decision fueled by prejudice and fear," said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "If Hershey is truly a company that believes in its social responsibility creed of 'commitment to consumers, community and children,' it will denounce this illegal and repugnant discrimination and immediately facilitate the enrollment of the boy at the school."

"It's appalling that Hershey Company would sit by and let AIDS stigma dictate school policy at the Milton Hershey School," said Rev. Jeffrey Jordan, pastor of MCC-Philadelphia. "We want to see the Hershey Company use their leverage as Board members to change the policy at the school for good."

According to the Associated Press (claim:Hershey School Rejects HIV-Positive Pa. Boy)(claim:By Peter Jackson)(claim:12/1/11): "A private boarding school connected with the Hershey chocolate company says it was trying to protect other students when it denied admission to a Philadelphia-area teenager because he is HIV-positive. The AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit on behalf of the unidentified boy in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia on Wednesday, claiming the Milton Hershey School for disadvantaged students violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. School officials acknowledged that the 13-year-old boy was denied admission because of his medical condition. They said they believed it was necessary to protect the health and safety of the 1,850 others enrolled in the residential institution, which serves children in pre-kindergarten to 12th grade and where students live in homes with 10 to 12 others."

"The ignorance displayed by the Hershey School's leadership is unacceptable and demonstrates just how much work there is still to be done to dismantle the fear and misinformation that still surrounds this disease more than 25 years after Ryan White," said Jessica Reinhart, Grassroots Community Manager for AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Ryan White was an American teenager from Kokomo, Indiana who, in the mid-1980s, was expelled from middle school because he was HIV-positive. A lengthy legal battle with the school ensued and White became a galvanizing force in educating the country about HIV & AIDS at a time when misinformation about the disease was widespread. After his death in 1990, the U.S. Congress passed a major piece of legislation named in his honor, the Ryan White CARE Act, which provides funding for HIV/AIDS programs for low-income Americans.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to more than 166,000 individuals in 25 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. www.aidshealth.org

source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ahf-protesters-target-hershey-at-may-1st-annual-meeting-over-child-laborfair-trade-violations-and-aids-discrimination-2012-04-30

Sex trafficking is a modern-day form of slavery in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion. The term ‘commercial sex act’ means any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.

Victims of Sex Trafficking and What They Face
Victims of sex trafficking can be women or men, girls or boys, but the majority are women and girls. There are a number of common patterns for luring victims into situations of sex trafficking, including:
• A promise of a good job in another country
• A false marriage proposal turned into a bondage situation
• Being sold into the sex trade by parents, husbands, boyfriends
• Being kidnapped by traffickers
Sex traffickers frequently subject their victims to debt-bondage, an illegal practice in which the traffickers tell their victims that they owe money (often relating to the victims’ living expenses and transport into the country) and that they must pledge their personal services to repay the debt.
Sex traffickers use a variety of methods to “condition” their victims including starvation, confinement, beatings, physical abuse, rape, gang rape, threats of violence to the victims and the victims’ families, forced drug use and the threat of shaming their victims by revealing their activities to their family and their families’ friends.
Victims face numerous health risks. Physical risks include drug and alcohol addiction; physical injuries (broken bones, concussions, burns, vaginal/anal tearings); traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulting in memory loss, dizziness, headaches, numbness; sexually transmitted diseases (e.g., HIV/AIDS, gonorrhea, syphilis, UTIs, pubic lice); sterility, miscarriages, menstrual problems; other diseases (e.g., TB, hepatitis, malaria, pneumonia); and forced or coerced abortions. Psychological harms include mind/body separation/disassociated ego states, shame, grief, fear, distrust, hatred of men, self-hatred, suicide, and suicidal thoughts. Victims are at risk for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) – acute anxiety, depression, insomnia, physical hyperalertness, self-loathing that is long-lasting and resistant to change (complex-PTSD).

Types of Sex Trafficking
Victims of trafficking are forced into various forms of commercial sexual exploitation including prostitution, pornography, stripping, live-sex shows, mail-order brides, military prostitution and sex tourism. Victims trafficked into prostitution and pornography are usually involved in the most exploitive forms of commercial sex operations. Sex trafficking operations can be found in highly-visible venues such as street prostitution, as well as more underground systems such as closedbrothels that operate out of residential homes. Sex trafficking also takes place in a variety of public and private locations such as massage parlors, spas, strip clubs and other fronts for prostitution. Victims may start off dancing or stripping in clubs and then be coerced into situations of prostitution and pornography.

If you think you have come in contact with a victim of human trafficking, call the National
Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1.888.3737.888. This hotline will help you
determine if you have encountered victims of human trafficking, will identify local resources
available in your community to help victims, and will help you coordinate with local social
service organizations to help protect and serve victims so they can begin the process of
restoring their lives.