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Human Trafficking
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FEATURED ARTICLES *** Belarus 500 human trafficking crimes exposed in
Belarus this year [2006] ITAR-TASS News Agency of Russia, Minsk,
26/10/2006 -- Source: http://www.tass.ru/eng/level2.html?NewsID=10926716&PageNum=0 www.humantrafficking.org/updates/453 [accessed 13 June 2013] www.data.minsk.by/belarusnews/102006/250.html [accessed 28 May 2017] Some 500 crimes of
human trafficking were exposed in Belarus in the first nine months of this
year, including more than 160 cases when the victims were taken abroad. According to Belarussian
representatives, the problem of recruiting citizens for sexual or labor
exploitation abroad remains quite acute. According to an analysis of criminal
cases, Byelorussians are taken to 30 countries of the world for sexual or
labor exploitation The problem of
labor exploitation of Belarussians at construction sites in Russia has also became topical recently. They are promised high pay, but,
upon arriving at the point of destination, Russian employers take away their
passports and force them to work 12 to 14 hours a day, using physical
violence on those who resist. Dominican
Republic Modern Slavery - Human bondage in Africa,
Asia, and the Dominican Republic Ricco Villanueva Siasoco,
Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease, April
18, 2001 www.infoplease.com/spot/slavery1.html [accessed 2 February 2011] CANE-CUTTERS IN THE
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
- In the Dominican Republic, the collection of slaves for the busy harvest
season is more random. The Dominican army, with the support of the State
Sugar Council (known as the CEA), "hauls Haitians off public buses,
arrests them in their homes or at their jobs, and delivers them to the cane
fields," according to Charles Jacobs. Some of the cane-cutters sign on to work
voluntarily. When the number of workers does not meet the harvest's demand,
the Dominican army is set into action. The army's captives are forced to work
at gunpoint and beaten if they try to escape. Eritrea Eritrea 'like a giant prison', claims human
rights group Xan Rice in Nairobi, The Guardian, 16 April
2009 www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/16/eritrea-africa-human-rights-refugees [accessed 4 February 2011] Government's
policies on torture, conscription and mass detention creating refugee crisis,
Human Rights Watch says. Eritrea is
becoming a "giant prison" due to its government's policies of mass
detention, torture and prolonged military conscription, according to a report
published today .
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said state repression had made the tiny Red
Sea state one of the highest producers of refugees in the world, with those
fleeing risking death or collective punishment against their families. There is no freedom
of speech, worship or movement in Eritrea, while many adults are forced into
national service at token wages until up to 55 years of age. Maldives Police accuse RIX of exploiting expats,
human trafficking violations Ahmed Aiham, The
Edition, 6 July 2020 [accessed 9 July 2020] Maldives Police
Service, on Monday, accused RIX Company Pvt Ltd of
human trafficking, as well as exploiting its foreign workers. Over 200 expatriate
workers partook in protests over their employer's failure to pay six months
of salary, which culminated in the holding of 13 Maldivian staff hostage at Bodufinolhu, Baa Atoll - an island being developed as a
resort property. Moreover, police
noted that the company had sourced trafficked expatriates from various
islands and coerced employees to continue working with their wages withheld
for long periods of time. RIX Maldives
claimed that it was unable to pay salaries after Seal Maldives' failure to
make payments for four months from January 2020 onwards. The allegations
were denied by Seal Maldives, which asserted that it had paid a total of MVR
21,773,338 to RIX Maldives upon completion of the contracted project,
although the initial agreement stipulated a payment of MVR 12,332,765. The
surplus was attributed to the cost of funding additional work. Seal Maldives stated that there was no
reason obstructing RIX from making payroll, and accused the company of
neglect. Myanmar Remarks at Swearing-in Ceremony Mark P. Lagon,
Director, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Washington DC,
July 9, 2007 2001-2009.state.gov/g/tip/rls/rm/07/88003.htm [accessed 13 June 2013] Last week in
Southeast Asia, I met Aye Aye Win, a young Burmese
woman who dared to search for work beyond her own tortured country. A
recruiter painted a beautiful picture of work in a neighboring country. Aye Aye assumed substantial debt to cover up-front costs
required by the recruiter for this job placement. Together with some
800 Burmese migrants, many children, Aye Aye was
"placed" in a shrimp farming and processing factory. But it wasn’t
a job. It was a prison camp. The isolated
10-acre factory was surrounded by steel walls, 15 feet tall with barbed wire
fencing, located in the middle of a coconut plantation far from roads.
Workers weren’t allowed to leave and were forbidden phone contact with any one outside. They lived in run-down wooden huts, with
hardly enough to eat. Aye Aye is a brave,
daring soul. She tried to escape with three other women. But factory guards
caught them and dragged them back to the camp. They were punished as an
example to others, tied to poles in the middle of the courtyard, and refused
food or water. Aye Aye told me how her now
beautiful hair was shaved off as another form of punishment, to stigmatize
her. And how she was beaten for trying to flee. Beaten. Tortured.
Starved. Humiliated. Is this not slavery?? ***
ARCHIVES *** Armenia Gyumri’s Human Trafficking Victims Varduhi Zakaryan,
Hetq Online, January 15, 2007 hetq.am/eng/news/5409/gyumris-human-trafficking-victims.html/ [accessed 5 September 2014] “Seven of us lived
in one room, where we didn't even have the most basic facilities. We would be
kept partly hungry almost all the time – there would be days when we would
eat dry bread, cabbage stems and even days when we would go hungry. We had
already been working in those conditions for eight months when we learned
that Ararat had not sent any money back to our families, even though he would
swear on his brother's grave that our families were receiving payments
regularly each month,” narrated 42-year old Robert Karapetyan,
a resident of Gyumri. Bahrain Bahrain activists hope for better
protection of workers' rights Habib Toumi,
Bureau Chief, Gulf News, February 13, 2007 [accessed 20 January 2011] LACK OF LEGISLATION
- Around 270,000 foreigners
out of total population of 710,000 live in Bahrain, whose economy depends
heavily on them. But the lack of comprehensive legislation on foreign
workers, mainly from Asia, who come to Bahrain to work as domestic servants
and in the construction industry often means that they have to put up with
physical abuse, sexual harassment, non-payment or delay in payment of salary
and long hours of work. "We want
to use the workshop to increase awareness, knowledge and understanding of the
issue of exploitative labour and labour trafficking. Bahrain Confronting the Taboo of Human Trafficking John Defterios, Khaleej Times Online, 13 March 2009 www.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/mme/blog/2009/03/horrific-traffic.html [accessed 18 August 2015] Forty-year-old Suryavathi Rao fled the home of her employer that morning
shoeless with only a nightgown and bible to her name. The years of domestic labour have taken
their toll. She could easily pass for
60 if not a few years older. After
working 16 hours a day, seven days a week for a year and a half, Suryavathi could not take it anymore. She said through a translator that her meagre salary of $108 a month
had not been paid for six months. She
complained about not being fed meals and surviving on the generosity of her neighbour another domestic worker who pulled together
leftovers to get by. Suryavathi could not get through
three sentences without breaking into tears.
As a result of her fleeing for protection, she has become a runaway
worker with no rights. Her employer
holds her passport. The best she can
hope for is to get the passport back and hope that the shelter can give her
enough money to buy a ticket and fly home to Southern India. It is not that simple of course, since back
home Suryavathi fears she won’t be welcomed back
due to her “failure” to send back money and keep a job. This is the life of a forced labourer and
the complex world of human trafficking.
Technically, Suryavathi was not
trafficked. She had a sponsor agency
that she paid $1100 to back in India and is still charging here 5 per cent a
month interest on the balance. But she
certainly did not expect slave like conditions when she arrived. Barbados Human trafficking in Barbados and six other
Caribbean countries Caribbean Net News, Bridgetown, Barbados,
March 18, 2005 www.caribbeannewsnow.com/caribnet/2005/03/18/trafficking.shtml [accessed 21 January 2011] Human trafficking
is a reality in Barbados and some of its Caribbean neighbors, and it’s being
reported that some of those people brought illegally into the country are
being forced into labor. These
findings were made during an exploratory study that examined Barbados, the
Bahamas, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, the Netherlands Antilles and Suriname. Co-ordinator of the study, Ashley Garrett said traffickers
in these countries are using the illegal status of their “workers” to control
and take advantage of them. “There is a common
thread that sometimes the (trafficker) would say, ‘your situation is better
off than what you left so if you’re working for seven days a week, getting
paid minimally or you’re not getting paid at all, but we’re providing you
with some room and board, then that’s ok’,” she said. But she added that
“in the international definitions and in many of the national legislations of
these countries, that’s illegal and certainly forced labour.” Botswana Botswana in sweat shops, human trafficking
crisis Gowenius Toka,
Sunday Standard, 21-10-2007 www.sundaystandard.info/article.php?NewsID=2186&GroupID=1 [accessed 23 January 2011] www.sundaystandard.info/botswana-in-sweat-shops-human-trafficking-crisis/ [accessed 13 August 2020] The Sunday Standard
turned up further information that another company, Zheng Ming, which
operated a sweatshop in Ramotswa, was part of an
international trade in modern day slavery. Industrial Court Judge, Elijah Legwaila, would later rule that “it appears that Chinese
nationals pay large sums of money to recruitment agencies who send them
abroad with all sorts of promises and that some Chinese nationals even leave
China with promises of work in developed countries and that by the time such
people land at any destination they have neither the money nor the bargaining
power to protect their rights. “These Chinese
nationals are then housed and fed in compounds at the pleasure of the
employer. Their passports, air tickets, work and residence permits are
retained by the employer.” Legwaila was passing judgment in a case in which Bin Quin
Lin, a Chinese national working for Zheng Ming Knitwear, was held in forced labour without pay. Chinese investors are the biggest
investors in the textile industry which exports garments to America under the
lucrative AGOA agreement. El
Salvador Testimony of Sonia Beatriz Lara Campos The National Labor Committee, October 1999 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 5 September 2011] About 800 people
work there. There are 8 production lines, with 60 to 63 people in each,
plus other sections. The work
shift is Monday to Friday, beginning at 6:50am. They give us between 12
and 12:55 for lunch, with no other break. Leaving time is 7pm. On
Saturdays we worked from 6:50am to 4pm. Last year in April
we began to work at night. We worked from Monday to Friday 6:50am to 7pm, and from 7:30pm to 10:30pm. On Saturdays we
worked from 6:50am until 7pm. And on Sunday we worked from 6:50am to
5pm. Or, if we weren’t going to work on Sunday, we would work on
Saturday all night until 5:00 on Sunday morning. The overtime hours, and working on Sundays, was obligatory.
As an inspector, I was required to work all these hours on my feet. Haiti Slavery: Worldwide Evil Charles Jacobs, President, American
Anti-Slavery Group At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 5 September 2011] HAITI: SUGAR SLAVES - Next time you
add sugar to your coffee, think of Andre Prevot. A
Haitian, Prevot met a man who promised him a good
job nearby in the Dominican Republic (DR). But, as we've seen with the Asian
slavers, this is a classic lure. "He took me across the border and sold
me to the Dominican soldiers for $8," explains Prevot.
Once in their custody, he suffered the fate of thousands of his countrymen
who are forced against their will to cut cane for six or seven months — from
December to June — for little or no money. Though many
Haitians work willingly in the Dominican sugar plantations (Haiti is one of
the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere), there is a perennial
shortfall at harvest time. The State Sugar Council, known as the CEA, fills
the gap with a system that violates nearly every internationally recognized
labor code against forced labor. Although political turmoil in Haiti has put
an end to cross-border recruiting, the enslavement of blacks continues. Indonesia Indonesia's Footwear Workers Too Thin For
Aerobics Charles Wallace, Los Angeles Times,
Tangerang, 17 October 1992 At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 6 September 2011] Suyatmi, a shy, 20-year
old factory worker, is too poor to know much about sneakers. She's never
heard of Bo Jackson and is too skinny to care about aerobics.
Her world consists of a rented, 5-foot sqaure room in a shantytown where she sits on the
concrete floor with three other young women.
Every day a t 7 a.m., Suyatmi
begins work at P.T. Hardaya Aneka Shoes Industry,
one of six companies in Indonesia making shoes for Nike Inc., the spectacurly successful U.S. sporting goods company. Her
production "line" of 30 workers produces 350 pairs of Nike's glitzy
footwear a day. Suyatmi
and her co-workers earn a base salary of 1,900 Indonesian rupiahs a day, the
equivalent of $1.15. Working a six-day week, with a
least two hours of overtime each day, she takes home about $17 per week. The
company also gives her lunch and a bus ride to work.
"Some days it's hard," she said.
"But I'm just happy to have a job." Indonesia Human Trafficking, Migrant Labor Often
Linked in Indonesia News Blaze, June 11, 2007 -- Source: U.S.
Department of State iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/article/2007/06/20070607164452dybeekcm0.7253229.html#axzz3BKE2hiUo [accessed 24 August 2014] More than 2.5
million Indonesians from poorer regions support their families every year by
traveling overseas seeking work as domestic servants and laborers. Most work
in Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, but hundreds of thousands of others also can be
found in Singapore, Japan, Syria, Kuwait, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Some of these
individuals find work through officially sanctioned recruiting agencies. But Susilo estimates that more than half of would-be migrant
workers bypass these programs for the deceptive ease of working through less
reputable recruiters who, like traffickers the world over, confiscate
passports, trap would-be workers with exorbitant loans to travel abroad and
force them into laboring in dangerous and abusive work environments in a
futile effort to repay their unmanageable debts before sending money home to
their families. Japan Forced Labor? Male Migrant Workers In Suvendrini Kakuchi,
Inter Press Service IPS, www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/GF09Dh02.html [accessed 16 February 2011] www.ipsnews.net/2005/05/labour-japan-male-migrant-workers-too-have-it-tough/ [accessed 7 June 2017] "While the problems
of human trafficking focuses on women forced into sexual slavery in Japan,
there are many cases of coerced male labor in the country, a situation that
still goes ignored and needs urgent attention," said Tomoyuki Yamaguchi,
a counselor at the Asian Peoples' Friendship, a non-governmental organization
(NGO) supporting migrant workers. He points out that complaints by male workers sound very similar to
those of trafficked women, such as low wages, long and exhausting working
hours, and violence from their bosses.
The bulk of complaints are over unpaid overtime, sometimes running
into years, and injuries in the workplace. The counselor said many of the
workers were reluctant to confront their bosses for fear of being deported
for violating their tourist visas. Latvia From Ballroom Dancer to Stripper: Surviving
Chicago's sex slave trade Series: Sex and Sorrow: The Modern Slave Trade Annie Sweeney, Crime Reporter, Chicago Sun
Times, August 7, 2005 www.ipsn.org/organized_crime/prostitution/surviving_chicago.htm [accessed 17 February 2011] To Z, Mishulovich's offer was exhilarating. It was also a lie -- something she
discovered shortly after landing at O'Hare Airport. Put up in a cramped apartment with other
Latvian women, she was watched constantly, beaten and threatened with being
sold as a prostitute. Her passport was taken away. And the dancing? Really it was stripping.
For maybe $20 a night. She was a
virtual slave -- a sex slave, a victim of "human trafficking." Nigeria Recruitment Firms as Agents of Forced Labour, Human Trafficking ThisDayLive, Nigeria, 01 August
2012 www.thisdaylive.com/articles/recruitment-firms-as-agents-of-forced-labour-human-trafficking/121272/ [accessed 1 August 2012] allafrica.com/stories/201208010669.html [accessed 19 February 2019] Allegations are
mounting against recruitment agencies in the country for engaging in forced labour and human trafficking. Linda Eroke
writes on the need for strict regulations and the promotion of recruitment
practices that do not threaten the right of workers. Although, Nigeria
like most African countries is bedeviled by so many problems such as poverty,
unemployment, insecurity and natural disaster, the problem of forced labour and human trafficking has continued to undermine
the essence of living. Every day,
increasing number of men, women and children are trafficked from one city to neighbouring countries and across continents with
promised of better life outside their comfort zones. In the cause of searching for greener
pasture, they are coerced into work they have not chosen and subjected to
perpetual life in bondage. They work under strenuous conditions and do not
receive the wage that was promised them.
The International Labour Organisation
(ILO) described this group of people as victims of forced labour
who have been trafficked into a situation from which they find it difficult
to escape. In Nigeria, there
is a high demand for cheap and easily disposable labour
as organisations, which are already over burden
with high cost of operations engage the services of private recruitment
agencies. This is common in industries
that are labour intensive such as agriculture,
domestic work or construction. Most of these agents, unknown to many are
traffickers who take advantage of the huge supply of cheap labour within and outside the shores of the country. Though the ILO recognises
the positive role played by Private Employment Agencies (PEAs) in national
and global labour markets, it however called for
strict regulations and the promotion of recruitment practices that do not
threaten workers’ rights. Poland
- Italy Human Trafficking Ring Raided in Associated Press AP, Rome, 19 July 2006 www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_wires/2006Jul19/0,4675,ItalyHumanTrafficking,00.html [accessed 2 September 2014] www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jul/20/italy.internationalcrime [accessed 11 February 2018] "Gangsters
working in Poland recruited people looking for seasonal jobs picking fruit
and vegetables in Italy through announcements in local newspapers," Bienkowski told a news conference. He said workers
had to pay travel costs and a one-time work-finders fee of up to $280. But
once in Italy, their situation quickly deteriorated. The workers were
promised $6.30-$7.50 per hour before leaving, but received only $1.25 an hour
after arriving, Bienkowski said. They were
quartered in barracks with horrible sanitary conditions and had to pay for
food and board, which pushed most of them into debt. Russia Trafficking in Russia Anti-Slavery International At one time this article had been archived
and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 11 September 2011] CASE STUDY: SERGEY'S
STORY -
Sergey is 27 years old and from Perm in Russia. In 2001 he saw an advert in a
local newspaper for a job agency recruiting construction workers to work in
Spain. The salary offered was US$1,200 per month. This was much more than his
monthly salary of just $200 and more than he could ever hope to earn in Perm.
He applied to the agency who booked his plane ticket to Madrid on the
condition that he would pay back the money when he started work. On arrival in
Spain, Sergey was picked up by a person from the "agency" who took
his passport. He was taken to Portugal and forced to work on a construction
site without pay for several months. The site was surrounded by barbed wire.
Without his passport he was afraid that the Portugese
authorities would arrest him. One day Sergey managed to escape and begged his
way to Germany. Because he did not have a passport the German authorities
arrested him. He stated the police beat him and took away what little money
he had before deporting him to Russia. South
Korea South Korean labour
laws reduce migrant workers to slaves Mostly Water, 16 March 2004 newsattic.com/d/hl/south_korean_labour_laws_reduce_migrant_workers_to_slaves.html [accessed 3 September 2014] Migrant workers treated like
"slaves" in South Korea's agricultural industry ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific apmigration.ilo.org/news/migrant-workers-treated-like-slaves-in-south-koreas-agricultural-industry [accessed 25 February 2019] To migrant workers,
the EPS is a law that allows slavery. According to the new law, migrant
workers can work in South Korea for only three years and for only one
employer. Since migrant workers cannot change their work place, the employer
basically has complete control over the wages and working conditions of
migrant workers; thus these workers are bound to the employer like slaves. USA Indian workers' struggle shines light on
human trafficking, slave labor Sunil Freeman, Party for Socialism and
Liberation PSL, July 4, 2008 www2.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9509&news_iv_ctrl=1036 [accessed 18 June 2013] www.liberationnews.org/08-07-04-indian-workers-struggle-shines-html/ [accessed 26 February 2018] The plight of
immigrant Indian workers who were deceived into virtual slavery has brought
attention to the vile practice of human trafficking. Indian workers protest slave-like
conditions before the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., June 11. The
workers took jobs with Signal International to work on the U.S. Gulf Coast
following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Indian workers
were told they would receive "green cards," allowing them permanent
legal residence in the United States. Many who left their families behind in
search of better wages had been told they would be able to bring their
relatives. The promises were all lies.
Instead of receiving permanent legal status, the workers—who had paid fees of
up to $20,000 to Signal—received 10-month H-2B temporary worker visas. The workers were essentially trapped, and
their employers knew it. Their documents were stolen and wages were withheld.
For all practical purposes, slavery had returned to Louisiana. USA An American Nightmare Dan Rather, Huffington Post, 11/10/11 www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-rather/an-american-nightmare_b_1086537.html [accessed December 8, 2011 ] Before coming to the United States, Signal's
recruiters forced the workers to pay up to $20,000 in recruiting fees, a
fortune for a middle-class Indian. They mortgaged homes and sold family
jewelry, expecting that they would make the money back and then some. But
even with Signal's competitive wages, the workers were unable to climb out of
the deep hole of debt. And the workers say this allowed Signal to keep them
in a perpetual state of indentured servitude. And on top of all this, the workers were
forced to pay more than $1,000-a-month in rent, or about a third of their
monthly salary -- whether they lived in the camps or chose to rent an
apartment elsewhere. The company says the housing was provided as a service
to workers, since Katrina had destroyed so many local apartment buildings. But
the workers said there was no shortage of nearby housing that was much
cheaper and cleaner than what Signal was providing. And then there were
the promised Green Cards: they never came. USA Human trafficking cases increase in El Paso Louie Gilot,
Libertas, November 12, 2006 libertasuiuc.blogspot.com/2006/11/human-trafficking-cases-increase-in-el_12.html [accessed 8 January 2011] Gardes showed the photograph
of a field worker standing on top of a large farm truck -- a scene common
across the Southwest. His name is Ricardo, she said. He was smuggled across
the border in Arizona and abandoned in the desert for eight days with only
three days' worth of food and water. He was found by another smuggler who
offered to guide him, for a fee. When Ricardo couldn't pay, the smuggler sold
him to a Florida labor contractor for $1,100. This became Ricardo's
debt. He worked in a field for $80 a week to repay it. At the same time, his
trafficker overcharged him for rent and other necessities. Gardes said he was never meant to be able to repay the
debt. One day, another trafficking victim escaped, was recaptured and
was beaten in front of Ricardo and the others. "At this point, Ricardo
realized this was really slavery," Gardes
said. Vietnam Boycott "Blood Cashews" From
Vietnam Press Release, BPSOS - Boat People SOS,
June 13, 2012 www.law-forums.org/boycott-blood-cashews-from-vietnam-t70609.html [accessed 16 February 2016] [accessed 3 March 2019] At a recent hearing
before the US Congress, Dr. Nguyen Dinh Thang,
Executive Director of Boat People SOS (BPSOS), reported that Vietnamese
prisoners, including political prisoners, have similarly been subjected to
forced labor: "One Montagnard, jailed from 2002 through 2009, had to do this
for 7 years. His hands were injured by
the caustic resin from the cashew nuts because he was not allowed to wear
gloves." Speaking for CAMSA,
Mr. Vu Quoc Dung, Secretary General of Germany-based International Society
for Human Rights, denounces the dangerous cashew work in prisons such as the
Z30A Prison in Xuan Loc, where political prisoners
are forced each to process 32 kg of class B cashews daily. Some prisoners
have developed blindness as a result. Many have suffered injuries to their
faces and hands. Those failing to meet the assigned quota would be beaten
with a whip and kicked. Political prisoners who oppose forced labor have
reportedly been shackled and held in solitary confinement. Zimbabwe Lied to and abused, trafficked persons from
Zimbabwe find some healing [Category – Rape] [Category –Labor-adult] Doreen Ajiambo,
Global Sisters Report, Harare, 24 August 2020 [accessed 24 August 2020] Jane's journey of
pain began in 2016, when she was enticed by a trafficking agent in Harare
with promises of a salary of $1,400 per month at a hotel in Kuwait, more than
3,000 miles away. Life had become unbearable in Zimbabwe after her husband
lost his job as a casual laborer in a local milk factory and they were
evicted from their house for nonpayment of rent. "Life was very
difficult and we barely had something to eat, and if we ate, it was one meal
per day," she said. It was at this
difficult time that she met her trafficker, who was well acquainted with her
mother. Everything was planned quickly, and within one week, all her travel
documents were ready, including her passport. She was given a new Islamic
name: Amina Ishmael. Upon reaching
Kuwait, she was picked up from the airport by a man who would be her boss. It
was at his house that Jane realized she had been lied to and trafficked. Her
host took away her travel documents and forcefully performed a medical
procedure to check her overall health. "I was raped
every day, and I was helpless to do anything about it," she said,
weeping throughout the interview with GSR but insisting she wanted to tell
her story. "I was forced to work day and night, beaten, restricted to go
anywhere, threatened of arrest and deportation and unlawful withholding of my
passport. I wasn't even paid for the five months I worked at the home." When things became
intolerable, she fled the home and took refuge in the Zimbabwe consulate. #
General # COVID-19, Migrant Labor, and the Case for
Labor Recruitment Reform Jeff Bond, Council on Foreign Relations’
blog series on human trafficking, 10 June 2020 www.cfr.org/blog/covid-19-migrant-labor-and-case-labor-recruitment-reform [accessed 11 August 2020] MIGRANT LABOR VULNERABILITY
BEFORE THE PANDEMIC
-- Globally, there are an estimated 164 million migrant workers. One in four
victims of forced labor is a migrant. This translates to millions of migrants
in modern slavery and tens of millions more at risk. Many migrant workers
have little education and few livelihood options. They often are in debt and
belong to social groups that are further disadvantaged and marginalized, such
as the rural poor, ethnic minorities, or scheduled castes. The systems
underpinning overseas labor migration exploit these vulnerabilities from end
to end. Workers, desperate to improve their lives, are deceived into taking
on inescapable debt to pay exorbitant fees to migrate and work for abusive
employers in countries that extend them few rights. #
General # 21 million people are now victims of forced
labour, ILO says International Labour
Organisation ILO News, Geneva, 01 June 2012 www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/press-and-media-centre/news/WCMS_181961/lang--en/index.htm [accessed 5 June 2012] Nearly 21 million
people are victims of forced labour across the
world, trapped in jobs which they were coerced or deceived into and which
they cannot leave, according to the ILO’s new global estimate. FORCED LABOUR IN
NUMBERS - Three out of every
1,000 people worldwide are in forced labour today. 18.7 million (90 %) are
exploited in the private economy, by individuals or enterprises. Of these,
4.5 million (22 per cent) are victims of forced sexual exploitation and 14.2
million (68 per cent) are victims of forced labour
exploitation in economic activities, such as agriculture, construction,
domestic work or manufacturing. 2.2 million (10%)
are in state-imposed forms of forced labour, for
example in prisons, or in work imposed by the state military or by rebel
armed forces. 5.5 million (26 %)
are below 18 years. #
General # Behind the figures: Faces of forced labour International Labour
Organisation ILO News, Geneva, 01 June 2012 www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/press-and-media-centre/news/WCMS_181915/lang--en/index.htm [accessed 5 June 2012] A way out of debt
bondage - The majority of bonded labourers are in
Asia and Latin America. They pledge their labour
against a loan or a wage advance. An accident or sickness can oblige workers
to borrow more money, which plunges them into a vicious cycle of
indebtedness, passing the debt from generation to generation. #
General # ILO Global Estimate of Forced Labour -
Results and methodology [PDF] International Labour
Office, Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL). - Geneva: ILO, 2012 ISBN: 9789221264125; 9789221264132 www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/publication/wcms_182004.pdf [accessed 5 June 2012] In 2005, the
International Labour Office (ILO) published its
first global estimate of forced labour.1 The estimate (a minimum of 12.3
million persons in forced labour at any point in
time in the period 1995-2004) received considerable attention by governmental
and non-governmental organizations and in the media. It has since been widely
cited as the most authoritative estimate of the largely hidden, and therefore
difficult to measure, phenomenon of forced labour.
The estimate served its main purpose – to raise global awareness of the
magnitude of the crime of modern day forced labour,
and to stimulate action at all levels against it. The capture-recapture
methodology applied was also subject to scrutiny, particularly by the
academic community and certain government agencies. A number of issues were
raised concerning the underlying assumptions of the methodology and the
procedure by which the extrapolation was made. The purpose of the
present document is to describe in detail the revised methodology used to
generate the 2012 ILO global estimate of forced labour,
covering the period from 2002 to 2011, and the main results obtained. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking
& Modern-day Slavery – Lecture Resources - Labor - Adult",
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