America - Revictimizing Native women for political purposes Tribal police should be able to go off reservation to hunt and arrest non-Indian rapists of Native American women on Indian land.

http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2012/08/revictimizing-native-women-for.html

Revictimizing Native women for political purposes

 

Tribal police should be able to go off reservation to hunt and arrest non-Indian rapists of Native American women on Indian land.

Early this week, two U.S. House Representatives members and the Tacoma News Tribune took clear stands against protecting women from sexual assault. Representatives Todd Akin, R-Missouri, and Steve King, R-Iowa, did so by promoting the concept of “legitimate rape.” The News Tribune did so by attacking the only real hope for combating the national pandemic of violence against Native women.

As originally passed by the U.S. Senate, the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization legislation would allow tribes to exercise limited criminal jurisdiction over certain non-Indians who violate Native American women on Indian reservations. Tribes would be required to provide all rights accorded to defendants in state and federal court, and federal courts would have authority to review tribal court decisions that result in incarceration. The legislation would not raise the one-year maximum sentence that tribal courts can impose. The GOP-controlled House, however, omitted the protections for Indian women in its version of the bill.

Among those voting to omit the tribal protections were vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, U.S. Senate candidate Akin, and House Republican King. In an interview originally broadcast on Sunday, Akin suggested that an abortion would be unnecessary in the instance of a “legitimate rape” because apparently only non-legitimate rape leads to pregnancy — whatever that means. Chiming in agreement, fellow House Rep. King said that he’s never heard of a girl getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest. While Akin and King quickly recanted, they cannot as simply withdraw their votes against the Senate’s proposed protections for abused Native women. 

Also Monday, The News Tribune (editorial, "Protect Indian women without diluting Bill of Rights") accused tribal governments of having “an agenda of their own: They see the domestic violence issue as a way to assert and reclaim broader sovereign powers.” The editorial is wrong. Indian Country sees the the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) reauthorization as a way to protect Indian women from being violently assaulted.

The paper got one thing right, however. It did describe “an intolerable gap of justice” caused by the fact that tribes cannot assert jurisdiction over non-Indian perpetrators of violence and that federal and state governments are too busy to do so. This is the result of a 1978 the U.S. Supreme Court decision — a case that arose on Washington state’s own Kitsap Peninsula — which held that that tribal governments cannot criminally prosecute non-Indians. What has since resulted from Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe is a jurisdictional gap where non-Indians can enter Indian reservations and literally get away with murder — or, more commonly, rape. Indeed, sex offenders are now using Indian reservations as safe havens to commit sex crimes against Indian women. Consider these statistics:

Native women suffer violent crime at the highest rates in the country.
On many reservations, Native women are murdered at a rate more than 10 times the national average.
Violent crime rates in Indian Country are more than 2.5 times the national rate; some reservations face a rate 20 times higher.

The federal government has jurisdiction to convict these offenders, but it fails to do so. On some reservations, as few as three federal officers are responsible for patrolling millions of acres of land. These officers are typically located a substantial distance from tribal communities and are generally unaware of the exigency of many of the reported incidents of domestic violence. According to a 2006 Amnesty International study, it is not uncommon for Native victims of assault to “have to wait hours or days to receive a response from police and, in many situations, [victims] receive no response at all.” In the Navajo Nation, for example, 329 rape cases were reported in 2007 — five years later, there have been only 17 arrests.

The Tulalip Tribes' Deborah Parker (in hat) at a D.C. rally in support of the Violence Against Women Act reauthorization passed by the U.S. Senate.

Here in Washington, an antiquated federal law has granted local police officers the power to enforce the state’s law upon non-Indians within Indian Country. But the result is the same. The surrounding and generally larger non-Indian community does not provide policing to adequate levels. For decades, despite much outrage by tribal victims of domestic violence — victims such as Tulalip Tribes Vice Chair Deborah Parker — complaints have fallen on deaf ears. The most recent study to assess the issue has concluded that state criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country has actually caused an increase in crime.

Under the Senate’s VAWA reauthorization, tribes would again be able to exercise limited criminal jurisdiction vis-à-vis their own justice systems, which, according to a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office study, are “the most appropriate institutions for maintaining law and order in Indian country.” In particular, tribal police, the first responders to crimes on reservations, would finally be able to protect Native women from non-Native men.

Earlier this summer, however, House Republicans removed the tribal protections, with an admonishment of the tribes for “tout[ing] unverifiable statistics about the rate of non-Indian violence against Indian women on Indian land.” Republicans attacked the Department of Justice’s estimate that 88 percent of assaults against Indian women are committed by non-Indians; and instead suggested the number was only 31 percent. In short, according to House Republicans, the incidence of violence against Native women isn’t that bad. 

But, who cares if it is 88 percent or 31 percent of sexual predators who are allowed to violate Native women and get away scot-free? It's absolutely deplorable for House Republicans to take the position that rape and violence against Indian women is tolerable up to some point between the those two numbers. Were this the situation in any other part of the United States, affecting any other racial group, Congress would simply not allow such an atrocity to continue.

National Congress of American Indians/Flickr 

President Obama’s words ring true in the partisan VAWA debate: “Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we’re talking about doesn’t make sense.” The White House says that the president will veto any VAWA reauthorization that does not include the tribal protections. Sen. Patty Murray has also vowed to reject any proposed agreement with the House that does not include them. 

Meanwhile, Washington Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rob McKenna advocates for mere “tribal civil authority” over non-Indian sex offenders in Indian Country. While McKenna is at least addressing the issue with some thought, which is much more than can be said of other GOP candidates this summer, fines and civil restraining orders are not enough to combat reservation murder, rape, and domestic violence. On the other hand, as a member of Congress, his opponent Jay Inslee, introduced the Stand Against Violence and Empower Native Women Act in the House, a bill that tracks the Senate VAWA reauthorization almost word-for-word.

The jurisdictional gap created by our High Court nearly 35 years ago has created an extremely dangerous environment for Native women. It is only now that a solution to the sexual assault pandemic in Indian Country has begun to emerge. But if the House Republicans’ misogyny and racism prevails, the solution will fall through the political cracks. Meanwhile, Native women remain vulnerable to violent criminals who remain above the law.
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Responses to "Revictimizing Native women for political purposes"

Senegal’s fishermen are starting to smile! By Greenpeace International (Albums) · Updated 40 minutes ago Ever since Senegal banned foreign super trawlers from its waters, local fisherman have seen a major increase in the quality and quantity of fish.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151050134498300.441539.7297163299&type=1

Senegal’s fishermen are starting to smile!

By Greenpeace International (Albums) · Updated 40 minutes ago

Ever since Senegal banned foreign super trawlers from its waters, local fisherman have seen a major increase in the quality and quantity of fish.

With such clear evidence that banning giant commercial fishing vessels really DOES benefit local people, why doesn’t the Australian government follow suit?

Tell Australia to stop the Margiris super trawler: http://act.gp/RgtLJ0 or http://bit.ly/no-supertrawlers

ABC - A Trail of Ink: Tracking a Rare Tattoo-Related Infection

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/trail-ink-tracking-rare-tattoo-related-infection/story?id=17060757#.UDYejZPwF8E

 

A Trail of Ink: Tracking a Rare Tattoo-Related Infection

An uncommon skin infection led to a doctor's investigation into tainted tattoo ink. (Monroe County Health Department)

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By DR. KITTU JINDAL GARG, ABC News Medical Unit

Aug. 23, 2012

 

The reddish-purple rash, seemingly woven into the tattoo on a 20-year-old New Yorker's forearm, was strange enough to have doctors scratching their heads.

This trail began when the man received a tattoo in Rochester, N.Y. in October 2011. A short while later, he noticed the raised, bumpy rash. He called his primary care physician.

Doctors initially treated the man's arm with topical steroids, thinking that the rash was allergic-contact dermatitis. But that only made the problem worse.

By the time dermatologist Dr. Mark Goldgeier saw the patient, it was clear that this was no simple allergy.

He performed a skin biopsy so he could take a closer look at the rash under a microscope. What he saw was startling: the sample was riddled with a wormlike bacterium related to tuberculosis.

"I explained [to the patient] that he had TB, and he had a look of horror on his face," Goldgeier said.

For the patient, the finding meant a trip to an infectious disease specialist to start up to a full year of treatment.

Goldgeier, meanwhile, called the Monroe County Health Department.

"As soon as biopsy came back," he said, "I knew something in the process of tattooing was involved -- the ink, the water used for dilution, the syringes, the dressings."

And so began a nationwide medical mystery.

An article published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine describes how this one dermatologist helped connect the dots in an outbreak of tattoo-related atypical skin infections.

Dr. Byron Kennedy, public health specialist at Monroe County Department of Public Health, took over the case from Goldgeier. Kennedy first confirmed the results by repeating a skin biopsy on the patient. Once again, tendrils of mycobacterium chelonae, a type of tuberculosis-related skin bacteria, showed up in the sample.

Mycobacterium chelonae is a rapidly growing bug found in soil, dust, water, animals, hospitals, and contaminated pharmaceuticals. This family of bacteria does not commonly affect healthy individuals, but in patients with suppressed immune systems -- like those with HIV or on chemotherapy -- these bacteria can cause serious disease, often resulting in death.

The finding sent Kennedy and his associates to the tattoo parlor where the patient had been inked. Everything in the clinic was sterile, which made it unlikely that the infection had arisen there. But the tattoo artist, they learned, had been using a new gray premixed ink purchased in Arizona in April 2011; he used the ink between May and December 2011.

The ingredients of the ink -- pigment, witch hazel, glycerin, and distilled water -- seemed innocuous enough. But further examination revealed that the distilled water in the pigment was the likely culprit of the contamination.

The finding raised a number of questions -- not the least of which was how the bottles of premixed ink passed U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged this gap in regulations Wednesday in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report.

"Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, tattoo inks are considered to be cosmetics, and the pigments used in the inks are color additives requiring premarket approval," the report says.

While the pigments are subject to FDA monitoring, "no specific FDA regulatory requirement explicitly provides that tattoo inks must be sterile," they said.

Local jurisdictions can further regulate the practice of tattooing, with Los Angeles County cited by the CDC as an area where only sterile water is allowed for use with tattoo ink. This is not, however, uniform around the country.

In a perspective article published Wednesday in the New England Journal, Pamela LeBlanc of the FDA comments on this.

"Even if a person receives a tattoo at a tattoo parlor that maintains the highest standards of hygienic practice, there remains a risk of infection from the use of contaminated ink," she writes.

Kennedy had found the source of infection in this patient's case. Now, he and his colleagues focused on both treatment as well as source control.

"To make sure we weren't missing any cases, we contacted all 60 tattoo parlors in the county," Kennedy said. Luckily, none of the other parlors had been in contact with the contaminated ink. Kennedy then instructed nearby pathology labs to notify the county health department of any reported cases of this same infection. Due to these combined efforts, 19 cases of this atypical and difficult-to-treat skin infection were identified and treated, all from the same tattoo parlor. Kennedy and his team then turned the case over to the FDA.

"This case really put it on the radar of the FDA," Kennedy said.

And it was not a day too soon. CDC testing revealed that 1 out of 3 unopened bottles of the gray ink from the original distributor in Arizona contained mycobacterium chelonae. The CDC then issued a national alert for local health officials to be on the lookout for tattoo-related infections caused by this bacteria.

According to the CDC, 21 percent of adults in the U.S. report having at least one tattoo -- an increase from 14 percent in 2008. But with this burden of ink comes increased need for monitoring of safe practices and tattoo-related complications -- especially skin infections.

The CDC urges consumers to be vigilant about ensuring hygienic practices at their tattoo parlor of choice, and to alert health care providers at any sign of infection or rash.

Doctors, meanwhile, are urged to report suspected or confirmed cases to FDA's MedWatch program.

"The local dermatologist was the person to put this on our radar," said John Ricci, Senior Public Health Educator at the Monroe County Department of Health. "Without this initial case report to us, it would never have been detected."

Reggie Clemons: 21 discrepancies that cast doubt on his conviction Was Reggie Clemons' confession beaten out of him? We look at the discrepancies thrown up during the course of the prosecution Ed Pilkington and Laurence Topham guardian.co.uk, Wednesday

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/22/reggie-clemons-case-examining-the-evidence

Reggie Clemons: 21 discrepancies that cast doubt on his conviction

Was Reggie Clemons' confession beaten out of him? We look at the discrepancies thrown up during the course of the prosecution

• Ed Pilkington and Laurence Topham
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 August 2012 18.47 BST

The trial of Reggie Clemons

Articles and video

Bios

Timeline

Filmmaker Laurence Topham and Ed Pilkington report from Missouri on the case of Reggie Clemons Link to this video

• Reggie Clemons was not accused of pushing the Kerry sisters into the Mississippi. The main witness against him, Thomas Cummins,testified that he saw a "black hand" push his cousins into the river but failed to specify whose hand that was. Yet in the separate trial of co-defendant Antonio Richardson, Cummins said that it was Richardson who pushed the women into the river.

• Clemons confessed to raping Robin Kerry, but did not confess to murder. He was found guilty of murder as an accomplice.

• Two days after Clemons made the confession, he retracted it. He told St Louis police internal affairs officers that he had been beaten, punched in the chest and had his head slammed against the wall. He alleged that after hours of being assaulted he agreed to read out a confession that police officers had written in advance, because if he had refused to do so "they would have beat me some more".

• Police photos show that Clemons looked physically fit when he was first picked up by police, but after his was interrogated he was reported by several witnesses to have a swollen right cheek. When he came before a judge for arraignment, the judge sent him to the local hospital ER for examination, where he was diagnosed with muscle inflammation and a swollen face.

• Clemons's claims of police brutality were strikingly similar to independent complaints of police beatings made by his co-defendant Marlin Gray and by Thomas Cummins, the main prosecution witness against him, even though the three men had no contact with each other. All three sets of complaints related to interrogations that occurred within the same police station involving the same alleged techniques of assault, and all within the same 48-hour time span.

• Clemons's complaint of police brutality was dismissed and he was put on death row, as was Gray. But when Cummins sued the St Louis police for misconduct – claiming that detectives had tried to frame him for the murders and had fabricated police records – he won asettlement of $150,000.

• Clemons, a black man, was convicted of murder largely on the basis of eyewitness accounts of two men, both of whom were white and both of whom arguably had a self-interest in implicating him. Thomas Cummins was initially considered the prime suspect , though the investigation against him was later dropped, and Daniel Winfrey achieved a plea bargain in which he would testify against Clemons in exchange for avoiding execution himself. Winfrey was overheard saying before the trial that "he would take any plea bargain offered" and "say anything he had to to obtain a plea bargain".

• There was no physical evidence to support the murder and rape allegations against Clemons. The human rights group the Constitution Project has shown that that three-quarters of all prisoners exonerated in the US in recent years were convicted at least in part on the basis of faulty eyewitness testimony.

• Cummins changed the story he gave police several times,police records suggest. His highly inconsistent account given in the records either strengthens his claim that he was beaten up by police – which in turn supports Clemons's allegation that his confession was beaten out of him, too – or implies that Cummins was an unreliable source upon whom the prosecution should not have depended as star witness.

• One of the stories told by Cummins, as related by police notes, was that Julie Kerry had stumbled into the Mississippi after he startled her by trying to hug her. "He just wanted to hug her but she became startled, lost her balance and fell into the river," the police incident report records. Her sister Robin then jumped into the river to try and save her. Cummins later sued the police for alleged brutality and falsification of their notes.

• As the judicial process got under way, Clemons was denied a state-funded defence lawyer because he was told that all the registered state lawyers were busy at the time.

• Two private lawyers, Robert Constantinou and Jeanene Moenckmeier, were employed by Clemons's family to represent him. Moenckmeier has told the Guardian that she was given insufficient time to review boxes of evidence provided by the prosecutors under discovery. She has also complained that crucial evidence may have been withheld from her by the prosecution.

• The two lawyers were going through a divorce at the time of Clemons's trial. Moenckmeier was in the process of moving to California to take a job as a tax lawyer. A separate team of defence lawyers, who processed Clemons's later clemency appeal, alleged in court documents that the original trial lawyers "failed him at every stage of his representation", including failure to review the police reports up to a month before the trial. Moenckmeier denied to the Guardian that either the divorce or the move to California had adversely affected her representation of Clemons.

• A "rape kit" recording the results of tests on Julie Kerry's body after it was retrieved from the Mississippi was not presented to the jury in Clemons's trial, despite the fact that the allegation Clemons raped one of the Kerry sisters was an important part of the prosecution case against him. Nor was the rape kit disclosed to his defence lawyers before trial, even though they had specifically requested in writing to see "all evidence from the sheriff's department, police department and medical examiner's office who investigated and examined the recovery of the body of Julie Kerry".

• When the trial started in January 1993, seven prospective jurors – all of them black – were improperly excluded from the jury. A federal judge later found that this was unconstitutional, and ruled that Clemons's death sentence should be commuted to life imprisonment as a result. The state of Missouri managed to overturn that ruling on a legal technicality, allowing the death penalty to stand.

• The final composition of the jury was two black jurors and 10 white, in a city where 49% of the population is African American.

• The prosecutor in the case, Nels Moss, was heavily criticised after the event for his conduct during the trial. As court documents show, the district court that reviewed the case called his behaviour during trial "abusive and boorish" and "calculated to intimidate the defence at every turn".

• Before the trial began, Moss was specifically ordered by the trial judge, Edward Peek, to refrain from highly contentious tactics he had deployed at the previous trial of co-defendant Marlin Gray. But as documents lodged with the Missouri supreme court show, Moss blatantly ignored the order. He did precisely what he had been told not to do: to compare in front of the jury Clemons – a 19-year-old with no previous criminal record – to the notorious serial killers Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. A week after Clemons was sentenced to death, Peek found that Moss's conduct had been "willfully and intentionally committed in disobedience of the court" and fined him $500 for criminal contempt. But, still, the death sentence was allowed to stand.

• According to papers filed by Clemons' appeal lawyers to the Missouri supreme court, Moss addressed the jury in impassioned terms that the lawyers argued amounted to inflaming the jury. He asked the jury to imagine a hypothetical crime in which the Kerry sisters were raped, put into a "dark room" and repeatedly stabbed. "This hypothetical had nothing to do with the trial, but everything to do with Moss's goal to have an inflamed and upset jury". Moss has declined to talk to the Guardian ahead of the special hearing into the Clemons case in September.

• A member of the jury at Clemons's trial submitted an affidavit stating that if she had known of the discrepancies in the way the trial was conducted, she would not have voted for the death penalty.

• The state boundary between Missouri and Illinois falls down the middle of the Chain of Rocks bridge, which became a matter of great legal contention at trial. Lawyers argued over the precise location of an uncovered manhole on the bridge through which the Kerry sisters and Cummins were alleged to have been forced before being pushed into the river.

The prosecution said that the manhole lay on the Missouri side of the state line, which they used to claim jurisdiction over the case. But the defense argued the manhole had been located a few feet to the east on the Illinois side of the bridge, and that therefore the trial should have been in the Illinois courts. In the early 1990s Illinois was much less inclined to hand out death sentences than Missouri, so just a few feet could have been crucial. In fact, had the trial taken place today it would undoubtedly had been a matter of life or death: Illinois abolished the death penalty in March 2011 while Missouri
still has 47 death row inmates awaiting execution.

http://nandosigona.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/operation-mayapple-another-name-shame-campaign-from-the-uk-government/

AUGUST 22, 2012 · 4:03 PM

Operation Mayapple: Another name & shame campaign from the UK government

A few years ago the Labour government launched a name & shame campaign against employers who employed undocumented migrants and fined them with up to £10,000 for each worker. More recently the coalition government has employed a similar strategy to tackle tax avoidance . Following what must be deemed a successful model, in a similar fashion today the Home Office Border Agency is advertising the results of its latest law & order campaign named Mayapple started in May this year. The campaign is mostly a PR operation that comes after a series of fiascos in migration and bordermanagement (some self-inflicted as in the case of the ‘net migration’ policy) that have seriously affected the reputation of the Home Office and its Border Agency.

Video and photo cameras were sent with UKBA officers to film ‘law & order’ operations (maybe inspired by the experience accumulated with the participation to the UK Border Force TV series).

However, this is not a PR operation for the 2000 migrants who having overstayed and/or breached the terms of their visas had to return home.  One third was made of Indian citizens. The rest were mostly from Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh and Brazil.

One is left wondering if there is any rationale behind these countries of origin. A devil’s advocate may argue that there is not one rationale but three. To maximise impact and minimise troubles, the ‘illegal migrants’ were carefully cherry picked according to the following criteria: a) no women and no childrenbecause human rights activists could make a fuss; b) no citizens of rich and wealthy allies (i.e. US, Canada and Australia) because their embassies could raise a few eyebrows; c) no white people because they don’t fit the stereotype of the ‘illegal’ migrants, and, added benefit, the choice would please a section of the right-wing electoral body.

JUSTICE FOR JENNY COOPER - Birmingham, England. - On 30th June 2010 Jennifer Cooper was forcibly kicked to the ground so that she had injuries said to resemble a car accident.

JUSTICE FOR JENNY COOPER

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/431492_474493065908706_432427167_n.jpg

 

 

On 30th June 2010 Jennifer Cooper was forcibly kicked to the ground so that she had injuries said to resemble a car accident. More than by luck than judgement she didn't die. While the police took her to the police station and then because of her injuries to hospital, they have not recorded the incident as a crime against her. It appears that the police were tipped off, b

y someone they know to be totally unreliable, that she was dangerous. If you know Jenny that is laughable. The police will merely say that they are continuing investigations into allegations against her. Not a word of concern has been expressed about her injuries. No crime number has been issued to her so anyone trying to investigate what happened gets nowhere with the police. She cannot apply for compensation from Criminal Injuries. She appears to have no rights.

— in Birmingham, England.

 

 

Campaign Against Bride Trafficking (INDIA) - 55 Little Known Facts About . . . Human Trafficking

Campaign Against Bride Trafficking (INDIA)

http://traffickinginindia.blogspot.in/2011/01/55-little-known-facts-about-human.html

 

55 Little Known Facts About . . . Human Trafficking

Approximately 75-80% of human trafficking is for sex.a A large majority of children and women who are trafficked for sex become HIV positive.b There are more human slaves in the world today than ever before in history.l There are an estimated 27 million adults and 13 million children around the world who are victims of human trafficking.l Human trafficking not only involves sex and labor, but people are also trafficked for organ harvesting.k Human traffickers often use a Sudanese phrase “use a slave to catch slaves,” meaning traffickers send “broken-in girls” to recruit younger girls into the sex trade. Sex traffickers often train girls themselves, raping them and teaching them sex acts.l Eighty percent of North Koreans who escape into China are women. Nine out of 10 of those women become victims of human trafficking, often for sex. If the women complain, they are deported back to North Korea, where they are thrown into gulags or are executed.h Approximately 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die each year An estimated 30,000 victims of sex trafficking die each year from abuse, disease, torture, and neglect. Eighty percent of those sold into sexual slavery are under 24, and some are as young as six years old.j Ludwig “Tarzan” Fainberg, a convicted trafficker, said, “You can buy a woman for $10,000 and make your money back in a week if she is pretty and young. Then everything else is profit.”l A human trafficker can earn 20 times what he or she paid for a girl. Provided the girl was not physically brutalized to the point of ruining her beauty, the pimp could sell her again for a greater price because he had trained her and broken her spirit, which saves future buyers the hassle. A 2003 study in the Netherlands found that, on average, a single sex slave earned her pimp at least $250,000 a year.l Although human trafficking is often a hidden crime and accurate statistics are difficult to obtain, researchers estimate that more than 80% of trafficking victims are female. Over 50% of human trafficking victims are children.l  The end of the Cold War has resulted in the growth of regional conflicts and the decline of borders. Many rebel groups turn to human trafficking to fund military actions and garner soldiers.k According to a 2009 Washington Times article, the Taliban buys children as young as seven years old to act as suicide bombers. The price for child suicide bombers is between $7,000-$14,000.n UNICEF estimates that 300,000 children younger than 18 are currently trafficked to serve in armed conflicts worldwide.n Pregnant women are increasingly being trafficked for their newborns Human traffickers are increasingly trafficking pregnant women for their newborns. Babies are sold on the black market, where the profit is divided between the traffickers, doctors, lawyers, border officials, and others. The mother is usually paid less than what is promised her, citing the cost of travel and creating false documents. A mother might receive as little as a few hundred dollars for her baby.k More than 30% of all trafficking cases in 2007-2008 involved children being sold into the sex industry.o The Western presence in Kosovo, such as NATO troops and civilians, have fueled the rapid growth of sex trafficking and forced prostitution. Amnesty International has reported that NATO soldiers, UN police, and Western aid workers “operated with near impunity in exploiting the victims of the sex traffickers.”g Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video is about human trafficking. In the video, Gaga is trafficked by a Russian bathhouse into sex slavery.f Human trafficking is the only area of transnational crime in which women are significantly represented—as victims, as perpetrators, and as activists fighting this crime.a  Global warming and severe natural disasters have left millions homeless and impoverished, which has created desperate people easily exploited by human traffickers.k Over 71% of trafficked children show suicidal tendencies.l After sex, the most common form of human trafficking is forced labor. Researchers argue that as the economic crisis deepens, the number of people trafficked for forced labor will increase.k Most human trafficking in the United States occurs in New York, California, and Florida.l According to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), over the past 30 years, over 30 million children have been sexually exploited through human trafficking.k Several countries rank high as source countries for human trafficking, including Belarus, the Republic of Moldova, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Albania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, China, Thailand, and Nigeria.l Belgium, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Thailand, Turkey, and the U.S. are ranked very high as destination countries of trafficked victims.l Women are trafficked to the U.S. largely to work in the sex industry (including strip clubs, peep and touch shows, massage parlors that offer sexual services, and prostitution). They are also trafficked to work in sweatshops, domestic servitude, and agricultural work.l Sex traffickers often use brutal violence to “condition” their victims Sex traffickers use a variety of ways to “condition” their victims, including subjecting them to starvation, rape, gang rape, physical abuse, beating, confinement, threats of violence toward the victim and victim’s family, forced drug use, and shame.l Family members will often sell children and other family members into slavery; the younger the victim, the more money the trafficker receives. For example, a 10-year-old named Gita was sold into a brothel by her aunt. The now 22-year-old recalls that when she refused to work, the older girls held her down and stuck a piece of cloth in her mouth so no one would hear her scream as she was raped by a customer. She would later contract HIV.l Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises because it holds relatively low risk with high profit potential. Criminal organizations are increasingly attracted to human trafficking because, unlike drugs, humans can be sold repeatedly.k Human trafficking is estimated to surpass the drug trade in less than five years.  Journalist Victor Malarek reports that it is primarily men who are driving human trafficking, specifically trafficking for sex.i Victims of human trafficking suffer devastating physical and psychological harm. However, due to language barriers, lack of knowledge about available services, and the frequency with which traffickers move victims, human trafficking victims and their perpetrators are difficult to catch.i In approximately 54% of human trafficking cases, the recruiter is a stranger, and in 46% of the cases, the recruiters know the victim. Fifty-two percent of human trafficking recruiters are men, 42% are women, and 6% are both men and women.d Human trafficking around the globe is estimated to generate a profit of anywhere from $9 billion to $31.6 billion. Half of these profits are made in industrialized countries.d Some human traffickers recruit handicapped young girls, such as those suffering from Down Syndrome, into the sex industry.l According to the FBI, a large human-trafficking organization in California in 2008 not only physically threatened and beat girls as young as 12 to work as prostitutes, they also regularly threatened them with witchcraft.e Human trafficking is a global phenomenon that is fueled by poverty and gender discrimination.k Human traffickers often work with corrupt government officials to obtain travel documents and seize passports.i Women and girls from racial minorities in the U.S. are disproportionately recruited by sex traffickers in the U.S.l The Sunday Telegraph in the U.K. reports that hundreds of children as young as six are brought to the U.K. as slaves each year.m Japan is a major hub of sex trafficking Japan is considered the largest market for Asian women trafficked for sex.i Airports are often used by human traffickers to hold “slave auctions,” where women and children are sold into prostitution.m Due to globalization, every continent of the world has been involved in human trafficking, including a country as small as Iceland.k Many times, if a sex slave is arrested, she is imprisoned while her trafficker is able to buy his way out of trouble.l Today, slaves are cheaper than they have ever been in history. The population explosion has created a great supply of workers, and globalization has created people who are vulnerable and easily enslaved.l Human trafficking and smuggling are similar but not interchangeable. Smuggling is transportation based. Trafficking is exploitation based.l Sex traffickers often recruit children because not only are children are more unsuspecting and vulnerable than adults, but there is also a high market demand for young victims. Traffickers target victims on the telephone, on the Internet, through friends, at the mall, and in after-school programs.o Human trafficking has been reported in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and in some U.S. territories.e The FBI estimates that over 100,000 children and young women are trafficked in America today. They range in age from nine to 19, with the average being age 11. Many victims are not just runaways or abandoned, but are from “good” families who are coerced by cleaver traffickers.o Brazil and Thailand are generally considered to have the worst child sex trafficking records.k The AIDS epidemic in Africa has left many children orphaned, making them especially vulnerable to human trafficking.l Nearly 7,000 Nepali girls as young as nine years old are sold every year into India’s red-light district—or 200,000 in the last decade. Ten thousand children between the ages of six and 14 are in Sri Lanka brothels.j Human trafficking victims face physical risks, such as drug and alcohol addiction, contracting STDs, sterility, miscarriages, forced abortions, vaginal and anal trauma, among others. Psychological effects include developing clinical depression, personality and dissociative disorders, suicidal tendencies, Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome, and Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome.l The largest human trafficking case in recent U.S. history occurred in Hawaii in 2010. Global Horizons Manpower, Inc., a labor-recruiting company, bought 400 immigrants in 2004 from Thailand to work on farms in Hawaii. They were lured with false promises of high-paying farm work, but instead their passports were taken away and they were held in forced servitude until they were rescued in 2010.c According to the U.S. State Department, human trafficking is one of the greatest human rights challenges of this century, both in the United States and around the world.l - References a Aronowitz, Alexis A. 2009. Human Trafficking, Human Misery: The Global Trade in Human Beings. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group. b Destefano, Anthony M. 2007. The War on Human Trafficking. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press. c “Hawaii Home to Largest Human Trafficking Case in U.S. History.” ABC News. September 2, 2010. Accessed: December 26, 2010. d “Human Trafficking.” Unglobalcompact.org. Accessed: December 26, 2010. e “International Human Trafficking.” FBI. November 23, 2009. Accessed: December 23, 2010. f Keehn Anne.  “Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance Video About . . . Sex Slavery?” FTSBlog.net. September 13, 2010. Accessed: December 26, 2010. g “Kosovo U.N. Troops ‘Fuel Sex Trade.’” BBC News. May 6, 2004. Accessed: December 20, 2010. h Liebelson, Dana. “Nine out of Ten Women Escaping North Korea Are Trafficked.” Human Trafficking Change. October 29, 2010. Accessed: December 26, 2010. i Malarek, Victor. 2003. The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade. New York, NY: Arcadia Publishers. j “Millions Suffer in Sex Slavery.” NewsMax. April 24, 2001. Accessed: December 26, 2010. k Shelley, Louise. 2010. Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. l Skinner, E. Benjamin. 2008. A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery. New York, NY: Free Press. m “Slaves Auctioned by Traffickers.” BBC News. June 4, 2006. Accessed: December 28, 2010. n “Taliban Buying Children for Suicide Bombers.” The Washington Times. July 2, 2009. Accessed: December 29, 2010. o “Teen Girls Stories of Sex Trafficking in the U.S.” ABC News/Primetime. February 9, 2006. Accessed: December 26, 2010. http://facts.randomhistory.com/

Campaign Against Bride Trafficking (INDIA) - Human Trafficking Statistics world wide - The price of victims sold to human traffickers is based upon publicly available reports and is quoted in U.S. Dollars. Click on the dollar figure to see the source of t

Campaign Against Bride Trafficking (INDIA)

http://traffickinginindia.blogspot.in/2012/08/human-trafficking-statistics-world-wide.html

 

 

Human Trafficking Statistics world wide

The price of victims sold to human traffickers is based upon publicly available reports and is quoted in U.S. Dollars. Click on the dollar figure to see the source of the price.

·         Babies from Nigeria: $6,400

·         Babies in China: $7,800

·         Babies in Malaysia: $6,588

·         Children in China: $6,100 for boys, $500 for girls

·         Children in Ghana: $50 to parent, then $300 to trafficker

·         Children in India: $45, versus $350 for buffalo

·         Children in Iraq: Between $300 to $5,500

·         Children in Thailand: $25 typical price to "rent" a child beggar

·         Children in the United Kingdom: $25,000

·         Girls from Romania: $3,000 to $6,000

·         Girls in Bangladesh: $250

·         Person in Canada: $4,879 paid by pimp to trafficker

·         Teenage girls in Iraq: $5,000 for Virgins, $2.500 for Non-Virigns

·         Teenage girls in Ontario, Canada: $5,989 for a girl from Quebec

·         Woman in Pakitan: $342

·         Women from Mozambique: $670 from South Africa, $2 locally

·         Women from Myanmar: $7,300 as brides to China

·         Women from Nepal: $975 in Mumbai

·         Women from North Korea (by age): $1,066 (20s), $761 (30s), $457 (40s)

·         Women from Vietnam: $6,174 charged to men in Malaysia to purchase wife (Bride Trafficking)

·          Haryana cost of girl  (Bride Trafficking)  : 4000 Rs (approx 77 Euro)

Cost to rescure bride trafficking victim in China

An underground railroad organization that rescues human trafficking victims in China says that the costs from $1,300 to over $3,000 to conduct a rescue operation. The organization helps North Korean women who have been sold by traffickers to men in China. The women are sold to the men to be their brides for around $1,000.

Due to China’s one child policy, in certain areas of China the ration between men to female is 14 to 1.

Source:  Melanie Kirkpatrick, “North Korea: Human Traffickers and the Chinese Market for Brides,” Daily Beast, August 20, 2012.

Human trafficking profits in Macedonia

Unofficial estimates of the human trafficking trade in Macedonia places the profits to the traffickers at $61 to $73 Million (50 to 60 Million Euros) a year.

Many women who end up as victims of the human trafficking trade in Macedonia are trafficked from the Baltic region. During a span of 7 months in 2012, police in Macedonia apprehended 54 women from Baltic countries who were part of a human trafficking ring.

Source:  Biljana Lajmanovska, “Poverty is forcing Balkan women into sex trade,” Southeast European Times, August 15, 2012.

Age of human trafficking victims in Ohio

A three year investigation in human trafficking activity in the US state of Ohio found that out of 328 victims, 115 girls were trafficked before the age of 18. 12 percent of the minors were sold by human traffickers before they were 12 years old.

63 percent of the victims were run-aways.

According to the report, customers who paid for sex with these girls were “drug dealers, businessmen, police officers, lawyers, truckers, athletes and politicians”.  The men who have sex with the minors at homes, offices, bars and motels.

The men would pay between $10 to $150, depending on the services provided.

Source:  Associated Press, “Report: Women recruit girls for Ohio sex trade,” San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, 2012. 

Earnings of Human Trafficker in Canada

A human trafficker who was exploiting a Montreal girl by forcing her to work as a prostitute in Ontario made a reported $19,847 (20,000 Canadian) over a three month period, or $6,615 a month.

It was previously reported that a human trafficker in Ontario is able to purchase a girl for $5,989 (6,000 Canadian Dollars). 

Source:  Catherine Solyom, “Human trafficking is a hidden issue that’s hard to prove,” Montreal Gazette, July 19, 2012.

Human trafficking victims in Bulgaria in 2011

Authorities in Bulgaria reported rescuing 550 victims of human trafficking in the country in 2011. In the first half of the year, 313 victims were found.

In total, the human trafficking market in Bulgaria generates $1.5 Billion in revenue and has between 8,000 to 12,00 victims.

Source:  “550 Human Trafficking Victims Registered in Bulgaria in 2011,” novinite.com, July 13, 2012.

Price of babies sold in China

Police in China broke up baby trafficking rings in 15 different provinces and arrested over 800 people. Police reported that babies were being sold for up to $7,800 (50,000 Yuan).

Between 2009 and 2012, state media in China reported that 18,000 children and 34,000 women have been freed from human traffickers.

Source:  “China Busts Traffickers After Baby Auction,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek, July 5, 2012.

Age of young girls in Thailand’s prostitution industry

Human trafficking experts in Thailand report that the age of the youngest girls in the prostitution industry in Thailand are between the ages of 11 to 15. Many of the girls enters the prostitution trade to make money for their families.

Victims of human trafficking who are forced to work in the sex trade are trafficked from Northern and Northeast Thailand, as well as from China and Laos.

Source:  “Thailand remains major centre for human trafficking,” Asia One, June 28, 2012.

Human trafficking convictions in Cambodia in 2011

According to the United States Human Trafficking Report, authorities in Cambodia convicted 20 people for human trafficking activities in 2011. In 2010, authorities convicted 36 people in the country.

Source:  Sok Khemara, “Cambodia Remains Source of Trafficking, US Says,” Voice of America, June 20, 2012.

Human trafficking victims in 2012

The International Labor Organization and the United States Department of State reported in June 2012 that there were about 20.9 million people around the world who are victims of human trafficking.

In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the State Department reported that 14.2 million people are victims of labor exploitation, 4.5 million people are sexually exploited, and 2.2 million people are forced to work as slaves.

Asia has the most human trafficking victims with 11.7 million, followed by Africa with 3.7 million, the Americas with 1.8 million, Central and  with 1.6 million, North America, Europe and Australia with 1.5 million, and the Middle East with 600,000.

Source:  Ian Johnston, “42,000 modern-day slaves rescued but millions in bondage, trafficking report says,” 

Prostitution Prices

·  
Asian Massage Parlor in New Jersey: $200 to $400 for oral sex and intercourse

·  Australia: $150 per hour for Asian woman, $300 for Caucasian woman

·  Bangladesh: $0.60

·  Beijing, China: $100 to $400

·  Bulgaria: $25

·  Dubai: $81 to $136 in studio flat

·  Hong Kong: $40 in a one-room brothel to $232 in hostess bar

·  Iraq: $100 per session

·  Ireland: $45 to $129 charged by male prostitutes

·  Kenya: $25 for sex with 12 year old girl

·  Kurdistan: $150

·  Kuwait: Between $17 to $71

·  Mali: $2

·  Maylaysia: $100 for sex with child

·  Nigerian women in Italy: $13 per transaction

·  Nigerian women in Ivory Coast: $2 per act

·  Singapore: $25,000 for 3-day tour

·  Suriname: One gram of gold sold for $45

·  Ukraine: $124 to $248 for foreign language speaking prostitute

·  Underage girls in Washington, DC: $40 to $100 for 15 to 30 minuets of sex

·  United States: $50 to $100 for street prostitute
msnbc, June 20,2012. 

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The Late Biz Ivol

 

The Late Biz Ivol

Born	1 October 1948
Location	Kirkwall
Affiliation	Legalise Cannabis
Gender	Female
Personal information	Biz Ivol, a dedicated cannabis campaigner, passed away on 6th September 2004, aged 56, after suffering a bout of pneumonia. She had suffered from devastating Multiple Sclerosis and discovered relief from cannabis, especially mixed with chocolate. She publicly proclaimed that benefit from cannabis and fought for the rights of those in need of cannabis to be free from prosecution. She was burie d at St Peter's Church on South Ronaldsay after a low-key ceremony.The service was not religious and had been devised by 56-year-old Ms Ivol before her death on Sunday.  Her coffin was carried to the grave and speeches were made by two friends before it was lowered into the ground.It is understood that Ms Ivol's sister and ex-husband were among the mourners. Ms Ivol, who had multiple sclerosis, had been suffering from a chest infection but had refused medication for it as her health deteriorated. Her use of cannabis to ease the symptoms of MS attracted national attention. She was admonished at Kirkwall Sheriff Court in 1997 after she admitted growing 27 cannabis plants to relieve her pain.Further court proceedings had to be abandoned last year when Ms Ivol attempted suicide. She had denied possessing, producing and supplying cannabis but admitted under cross-examination that she had made cannabis-laced chocolates for MS patients. Ms Ivol compared the pain of MS to barbed wire being dragged through her spine. A sympathetic doctor suggested she try cannabis after all other methods had failed. She has been described as a "herbal suffragette" and the Legalise Cannabis Alliance said candle-lit ceremonies were taking place around the country to pay tribute to Ms Ivol. see more at http://www.ccguide.org/bizivol.php
Personal interests	Biz suffered from MS and had caught a chest infection, she had wanted to "escape" for some time, so refused any medication and died peacefully at home at 11pm on 6th September 2004. Biz was the lady who first made Cannabis Chocolate for fellow MS patients, her efforts created THC4MS and later herself and others campaigned for the law to change, the reclassification back in January this year was d own to Biz and others relentless campaign to allow cannabis as a medicine. The thing Biz said she would miss the most would be her beautiful garden, and her cat Willy, she wasn’t scared of dying, and had already arranged a natural funeral.  I know Biz would have wanted Cannabis to be legal for all, it was one of the last public speeches she made, for the LCA Conference in Norwich 2003. Anyone who would like to listen to Biz' speech can find it on the LCA website at  With Love and Sympathy to those who knew Biz, Clara xx Biz Ivol is a peaceful middle-aged lady who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis. She lived a quiet life in the Orkneys until becoming somewhat famous through her honesty after admitting that she used cannabis to help relieve some of the symptoms of her illness. Many people have done the same, being forced to break the law to obtain a supply of a helpful medicinal plant that they are unable to obtain illegally. The big difference between Biz and most fellow sufferers is that she went further and learned how to grow it and use the plant to make chocolate that eased her symptoms without having to smoke the cannabis. Biz Ivol, like Colin Davies, another UK man who was punished for supplying cannabis to seriously ill people who approached him for help, began to post out chocolate to fellow MS sufferers around the country. Like Colin, Biz was approached by the press and told her story honestly. The result: raids by the so-called Drugs Squad, search and arrest, then to be made to suffer unbearable stress whilst waiting almost 2 years for her trial which began in June 2003. As most people know, stress such as that caused by waiting to go to court worsens the symptoms of this almost unbearable illness many times. Over that two years Biz Ivol's condition worsened considerably, as did her eyesight and the use of her hands. One is forced to ask why it should take so long when the case was not unduly complicated and the court not over-run with other cases. One is forced to ask why she was ever taken to court in the first place. The majority of UK citizens, like others, in surveys express disquiet over the prosecution of victimless but seriously ill medical cannabis users. The House of Lords and the BMA have asked for leniency. There had already been several successful defences based upon medical necessity. Who will stand up and point the accusing finger at Biz? Only those paid by the state to do so. In June 2003, Biz said that she could bear to suffer no longer and would take her own life after the case, whatever the result. Whatever her choice, however we feel about suicide, we must not let her suffering be in vain. On July 2, the case was dropped after the Sheriff's Court heard a report from Biz Ivol's doctor, Simon Kemp, that the progression of Multiple Sclerosis made Biz unfit to be able to continue her trial. Prosecution and defence accepted this and the case was discontinued. The Sheriff said, "This is a sad and unsatisfactory end to this case. It has attracted a great deal of media attention. It may well be that Ms Ivol feels unable to continue with her defence of necessity. Any question of decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis is a matter for the politicians.. this case will not proceed again." Unfortunately, this was not exactly what Biz had wanted - she had wanted a verdict of not guilty. That morning, several members of the LCA Executive who had travelled to Orkney to attend the trial and support Biz, heard that she had been rushed to hospital with a suspected overdose of paracetamol. She was unable to attend the hearing. Later that day, Biz regained consciousness and was able to talk. A couple of days later, after being flown to Aberdeen and back for tests, Biz was able to return home,  where she told us that she was very tired and wished to rest and let others take over her campaign.

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