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.

Child Trafficking

There are approximately 100,000 to 300,000 human trafficking victims in the United States.
90 percent of all human trafficking victims in the country are American children with the average age being 13. About 70 percent are deemed throw-a-way kids — those who have run away, are in foster care or are neglected by their parents. Some kids are even sold by their parents for drugs. Only one percent of child trafficking victims are kidnapped.
According to the organization Stop Child Trafficking Now 2.8 million children run away in the U.S. each year. It is estimated that within 48 hours of hitting the streets one-third of those are then lured or recruited by sex traffickers.
The U.S. Department of Education states on its website, www.ed.gov, that children are targeted because of their “vulnerability and gullibility.” The streets are not the only place victims are targeted. Young victims can be found on chat lines, clubs, through friends, at malls and even after-school programs.
There is a surprising number of victims who come from wealthy families.
Human trafficking has been reported in all 50 states and while many are trafficked for labor most of the U.S victims are trafficked for sexual servitude. The Justice Department reported that 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the U.S. each year.
To learn more about modern day slavery visit www.SpeakAgainstInjustice.com

A "Taste" of Slavery

A Sweet Taste?

Do you enjoy the sweet taste of chocolate? It's safe to say that most of us do being that Americans alone spend over 18 billion dollars each year on it. Would that sweet taste suddenly turn bitter if you found out that behind the production of that tasty candy bar were child slaves? Hard to believe? It sure is. However, that doesn't change the fact that if you walk into a grocery store and buy a chocolate bar, the chances are good that it comes from the Ivory Coast. What is the Ivory Coast? A geographical host of cacao plantations on the coast of Africa that enslave children into forced labor. If you're still skeptical, I encourage you to watch the film "The Dark Side of Chocolate". This documentary captures the horrible injustice of human trafficking and how children are trafficked to work as slaves in the cacao plantations.

What about the big corporations? Why don't they do something? Well, until now they just didn't have to, at least in California that is. A bill passed this January (California Transparency in Supply Chains Act) that requires companies in California to disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their direct supply chains for goods offered for sale. The disclosure must be posted on the retailer or manufacturer’s website with a conspicuous and easily understood link from the homepage. Now if every other state would jump on board with this, it would be a good start to fighting this slavery. But what can you do about it?

Fair Trade Certified Products

Many have not heard of fair trade certified products. What is fair trade? It is a partnership based on dialogue, mutual understanding and respect for farmers and artisans. Fair Trade means that farmers and artisans get a fair, living wage for their crops and products. Through Fair Trade, farming and working families are able to eat better, send their kids to school, improve health and housing, and invest in their future. Fair Trade builds equitable and sustainable trading partnerships and creates opportunities to break the cycle of poverty. By supporting Fair Trade, you are directly helping developing countries climb out of poverty one family at a time, as well as protecting them from human trafficking.

I personally buy fair trade certified coffee. Not only does it taste extremely good, it is purchased for a good cause! They also give 75% of their profit toward other charitable needs. Vivente International has set the bar when it comes to fair trade coffee, and in my opinion cannot be outdone even by the bigwigs like Starbucks.

There are fair trade products everywhere, you just have to open your eyes. Fair trade chocolate, coffee, tea, even fair trade certified shirts. So what can we do to battle modern day slavery? Make wise buying decisions... buy fair trade. Visit the Fair Trade USA website for a list of certified companies you can purchase from.

To learn more about human trafficking and fair trade, visit us at www.SpeakAgainstInjustice.com

Why Is Human Trafficking Increasing in America?

City of Murrieta Mayor reads human trafficking proclamation

These past few weeks we have been attending meetings and forums on human trafficking in our local area of Riverside County. The statistics show that the illegal trafficking and slavery of persons in our country are increasing, but why? Who is involved? Who is responsible? What can we do about it?

Think about this... why do human slaves have the potential to generate more revenue than guns or drugs?  Because slaves can be sold, used and resold multiple times over again. This is what the gangs, cartels and mafia are beginning to realize. Why sell guns or drugs when it's just a one time deal? Why not utilize a "product" that can be resold multiple times over? Unfortunately this is one main reason why slavery in the United States is increasing.

Victims being trafficked are not only the ones being brought across our borders, they are local citizens like you and me. Our youth are particularly vulnerable. Recruiters often utilize social internet site such as facebook and myspace. They often befriend them, keep in touch with them, and "groom" them as the Riverside County Anti-Human Trafficking Task-force calls it. What happens when one of these young teenagers is struggling with something at home or at school? Many times they put confidence in peers, it is after all a hard time of life. We often turn to those who we feel cares the most, who will hear us, who will "groom" us. When a young, upset or depressed, weak and vulnerable teenager falls into this trap, all hell can break loose. The "groomer" can offer help, a shoulder to cry on, or influence them to make decisions. "Lets meet, I'd like to talk" one may say. Or maybe it's "Come with me, I know somebody who can help". Once that young person falls into the trap, it's all over.

I am reminded of a young teenage girl here in Riverside County. She was convinced to take the short trip across the border to Mexico to make some quick cash in a popular red light district. Needless to say, she never returned. Chances are she is now a victim of sexual exploitation... forced to have sex with multiple men every day, a slave to her master. Why do I feel this way? Because there were some surveillance pictures of her in a popular area ran by sex traffickers.

What can we do to battle this awful injustice? The first step is awareness! We need to educate both ourselves as well as our fellow citizens, schools, law enforcement, and every body we can possibly reach. It's not embedded in our minds to see something fishy and think, "Hmmmm... I wonder if this could be a case of human trafficking?". Know what you children are doing, who they are hanging out with, who their friends are on facebook, myspace and other social networking websites. Educate them, so that they know what to look for as well.

What to look for:
Often times, traffickers use drop houses in average neighborhoods to house victims. Here are some indicators of a drop house:
• Does not look like a typical family home
• May be a rental or vacant home
• Often located near main freeways
• Squatters may be occupying it
• May have out of town landlords
• Vans/SUVs come and go late at night or early morning
• Has attached garage (Traffickers don’t want people to see them transporting persons.)
• Windows closed off, barred, or boarded
• Heavily fenced
• Man/men standing guard out front
• Guard dogs

Obviously, not every house with these indicators is a drop house. But you can report suspicious activity:
Text: 951.213.9159
Email: clue@millionkids.org
Or you may report instances of human trafficking to the National Trafficking Hotline at 1.888.3737.888.

Remember, we are not law enforcement. Never attempt to do do anything about a trafficking situation yourself. What we can do is be the eyes and ears for law enforcement, and we can also be a voice to those who are victimized by this social injustice.

To learn more about this issue or to be a voice by wearing a human trafficking shirt, please visit our website.

The Story Behind Speak Against Injustice

While walking the streets of Southeast Asia, Chad's heart was truly broken by the fact that people (including children) were being trafficked like drugs and sold into forced labor and prostitution. Displayed on storefronts like manikins in a shopping mall, young men, women and children are sold for as little as $3 for sexual encounters. Others may be tricked into working for a recruiting company only to be sold into forced labor. After returning home, he and his wife, Rachel, were made aware that this is also happening right here in our own American towns!

Convicted to act against this horrible injustice, they began to brainstorm how they could make a difference and contribute to the fight. Being screen printers and having a heart to raise awareness of human trafficking, they decided to launch www.SpeakAgainstInjustice.com, an entity dedicated to raising awareness of human trafficking via spoken messages and statistics on t-shirts, sweatshirts and by way of public speaking.

Speak Against Injustice is unique in several ways, which they like to summarize as the "Speak-4".

There are four reasons why purchasing Fair Trade Certified human trafficking shirts from Speak Against Injustice is beneficial.

By purchasing a shirt you are:

1.) Supporting products that are ethically made, and each fair trade certified t-shirt you buy promotes sustainable livelihoods for the garment workers as well as cotton farmers, and ensures a slave free product.

2.) Going Green! Organic cotton represents a return to safe and sustainable practices. It is grown with natural fertilizers and is free from toxic chemicals.

3.) Raising Awareness of social injustice by simply wearing a Speak Against Injustice shirt.

4.) Financially supporting entities who fight against human trafficking as 25% of each sale from your item goes to organizations who are proactive in fighting against Human Trafficking.

While there are more than 27 million slaves in our world today, most have the false assumption that slavery ended a long time ago. To the contrary, there are more slaves in the world today than ever before in history. Will you be there voice... will you speak for them... will you Speak Against Injustice?

To learn more about Speak Against Injustice, please visit their website at http://www.SpeakAgainstInjustice.com

About Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking...
is a modern-day form of slavery. Victims of human trafficking are subjected to force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of sexual exploitation or forced labor. Victims are young children, teenagers, men and women.

After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it is the fastest growing.

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons as:

• Sex Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act , in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person forced to perform such an act is under the age of 18 years; or
• Labor Trafficking: the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery.

Trafficking Victims
Approximately 600,000 to 800,000 victims annually are trafficked across international borders worldwide, according to the U.S. Department of State. These estimates include women, men and children. Victims are generally trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe. Many victims trafficked into the United States do not speak and understand English and are therefore isolated and unable to communicate with service providers, law enforcement and others who might be able to help them.

How Victims Are Trafficked
Many victims of trafficking are exploited for purposes of commercial sex, including prostitution, stripping, pornography and live-sex shows. However, trafficking also takes place as labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, sweatshop factories, or migrant agricultural work. Traffickers use force, fraud and coercion to compel women, men and children to engage in these activities.

Force involves the use of rape, beatings and confinement to control victims. Forceful violence is used especially during the early stages of victimization, known as the seasoning process, which is used to break victims resistance to make them easier to control.

Fraud often involves false offers that induce people into trafficking situations. For example, women and children will reply to advertisements promising jobs as waitresses, maids and dancers in other countries and are then trafficked for purposes of prostitution once they arrive at their destinations.

Coercion involves threats of serious harm to, or physical restraint of, any person; any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that failure to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.

Victims of trafficking are often subjected to debt-bondage, usually in the context of paying off transportation fees into the destination countries. Traffickers often threaten victims with injury or death, or the safety of the victims family back home. Traffickers commonly take away the victims travel documents and isolate them to make escape more difficult.

Victims do not realize that their debts are often legally unenforceable and, in any event, that it is illegal for traffickers to dictate how they have to pay off their debts. In many cases, the victims are trapped into a cycle of debt because they have to pay for all living expenses in addition to the initial transportation expenses. Fines for not meeting daily quotas of service or bad behavior are also used by some trafficking operations to increase debt. Most trafficked victims rarely see the money they are supposedly earning and may not even know the specific amount of their debt. Even if the victims sense that debt-bondage is unjust, it is difficult for them to find help because of language, social, and physical barriers that keep them from obtaining assistance.

Help for Victims of Trafficking
Prior to the enactment of the TVPA in October 2000, no comprehensive Federal law existed to protect victims of trafficking or to prosecute their traffickers. The TVPA is intended to prevent human trafficking overseas, to increase prosecution of human traffickers in the United States, and to protect victims and provide Federal and state assistance to certain victims so that they can rebuild their lives in the United States. Victims of human trafficking who are not U.S. citizens are eligible for a special visa and can receive benefits and services through the TVPA to the same extent as refugees. Victims of trafficking who are U.S. citizens may already be eligible for many benefits due to their citizenship.

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. For more information on human trafficking visit www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking.

Excerpted from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Fact Sheet: Human Trafficking.

Speak against human trafficking by wearing an anti-trafficking shirt available at www.SpeakAgainstInjustice.com. 


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