Δευτέρα, 22η Οκτωβρίου 2007
Τοπικοί σκλάβοι από το Μεξικό, Ρωσία, και…
(Στη διάλεξη) Coonan επίσης είπε ότι συμβαίνει εντός της κινεζικής κοινότητας επίσης, με τους εμπόρους που υπόσχονται στις νέες γυναίκες μια καλύτερη ζωή στην Αμερική. Σύμφωνα με Coonan, μέσα εδώ κοντά Quincy, ένα κινεζικό εστιατόριο έχει τις ισπανικές γυναίκες που εργάζονται εκεί και που ζουν σε ένα μικρό υπόστεγο πίσω από το εστιατόριο. Πολλά από αυτά τα εστιατόρια έχουν επίσης τους υπαλλήλους τους που ζουν στην κουζίνα μετά από τις ώρες επίσης.
«σκέφτομαι ότι το συγκλονίζοντας πράγμα είναι ότι όλα είναι κοντά στο σπίτι,» η εν λόγω Danielle Μάιος, η οποία παρευρέθηκε στη διάλεξη. «Αυτό δεν είναι κάτι που βλέπετε στις διεθνείς ειδήσεις που είναι στην Καμπότζη, ή την Ταϊλάνδη. Αυτό το ζήτημα συμβαίνει στο σπίτι. Σκέφτομαι ότι είναι scary. Το Quincy είναι 45 λεπτά μακριά και οι άνθρωποι υποδουλώνονται. Αυτό είναι συγκλονίζοντας ότι αυτό είναι το 2007 και η σκλαβιά συνεχίζεται ακόμα.»
Σύμφωνα με τη διάλεξη, οι χώρες χάνουν τις ΗΠΑ. βοηθήστε εάν δεν επιβάλλουν τους νόμους κίνησης. Τα θύματα του νόμου προστασίας κίνησης και βίας του 2000, ορίζει ότι εάν ένα θύμα πιστοποιεί στην κίνηση, λαμβάνουν μια θεώρηση κυκλοφορίας (τ-θεώρηση), η οποία τους επιτρέπει την άδεια να εργαστεί στις ΗΠΑ. για περίπου τρία έτη και έπειτα είναι επιλέξιμοι για να υποβάλουν αίτηση για μια πράσινη κάρτα.
Οι περισσότεροι Αμερικανοί είναι ζαλισμένοι για να βρούν ότι η σκλαβιά ακόμα υπ:άρχω στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες, πόσο μάλλον ο υπόλοιπος κόσμος. Αντίθετα από το κράτος-εγκριμένο, φυλή-βασισμένο έγκλημα του παρελθόντος, η σκλαβιά σύγχρονος-ημέρας είναι κατά ένα μεγάλο μέρος ένα παράνομο, σφαιρικό φαινόμενο, που τροφοδοτείται πρώτιστα από το εμπορικό κέρδος.
Μερικοί είναι σκλάβοι στα εργοστάσια και τα αγροκτήματα. Άλλος-πρώτιστα οι γυναίκες και κορίτσι-είναι σκλάβοι στα πορνεία σε Mumbai, το Άμστερνταμ ή Las Vegas. Ακόμα άλλοι κρατιούνται στην εσωτερική δουλεία. Τα παιδιά απάγονται ως στρατιώτες παιδιών, αναγκάζονται να γίνουν επαίτες οδών, ή δελεάζονται και δεν χρησιμοποιούνται σωστά ως σκλάβοι σε μια υπόγεια βιομηχανία γνωστή ως τουρισμός με στόχο την αναζήτηση της ερωτικής απόλαυσης παιδιών.
Η κυβέρνηση δεν μπορεί μόνο να σταματήσει το διεθνές εμπόριο σκλάβων. Γίαυτό ένας συνασπισμός των απλών πολιτών, οι μη κερδοσκοπικές οργανώσεις και οι πολιτικοί ηγέτες παγιοποιούν και οδηγούν μια μετακίνηση ρεφορμιστών του 21$ου αιώνα με να θέσουν το ζήτημα στο επίκεντρο, την αύξηση δημόσιας της ευαισθητοποίησης, την ώθηση των χωρών για να κάνουν περισσότερα, και την παραγωγή των προγραμμάτων για να βοηθήσουν να ρίξουν τους εμπόρους στη φυλακή και να προστατεύσουν τους επιζόντες.
We are beginning to understand the tricks of today’s human traffickers, which are the same tactics as those used by the slave masters of old: deception, fraud, coercion, kidnapping, beatings and rape.
Victims obtained from a foreign country are often lured by deceptive schemes. They usually arrive indebted to their handlers, seldom know where they are, rarely speak the local language and have no one to turn to after the traffickers seize their passports and documentation.
Under the control of the traffickers, victims are subjected to overwhelming physical and mental pressures. Confined by beatings and threats against their families back home, trafficking victims surrender their dignity to poor living conditions and long hours in order to enrich their captors.
…
Trafficking victims-whether from across the ocean or the street-learn to trust no one, not even the police. Coerced to cooperate, trafficking victims become skilled at hiding in plain sight, disguising their shame from society, ever wary of discovery and fearful of retribution.
There’s a movement afoot. It asks each of us to be responsible, find out what is happening, pay attention to the signals, and insist on nothing less than abolition.
Categories of slavery are listed by the Department of State.
1-888-373-7888 is a number to call to ask for advice and report concerns:scared, foreign, unable to leave premises, demeanor is not natural might indicate employment is not voluntary.
Funding for a two year study of and help for slaves in the US under the The Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 was won in 2003 in the area and then not renewed. Grants are notoriously fleeting.
The idea that there are 100,000 actual ‘domestic servitude’ slaves in the US is so stunning for most of us that in my opinion it simply slips away in denial rather than outrage, even for me.
Aside from the psychological aspects of slavery, 90% in one study of ‘freed slaves’ report that sending money home (meaning most of the money) was more important, as the perception was the money sent was needed to help avoid catastrophe at the slaves’ home of origin, or local traffickers would harm family that remained behind if trouble was caused. Powerful forces indeed.
Another point of view regarding US slavery is expressed in WAPO.
… Congress passed a law, triggering a little-noticed worldwide war on human trafficking that began at the end of the Clinton administration and is now a top Bush administration priority. As part of the fight, President Bush has blanketed the nation with 42 Justice Department task forces and spent more than $150 million — all to find and help the estimated hundreds of thousands of victims of forced prostitution or labor in the United States.
But the government couldn’t find them. Not in this country.
…
The administration has identified 1,362 victims of human trafficking brought into the United States since 2000, nowhere near the 50,000 a year the government had estimated. In addition, 148 federal cases have been brought nationwide, some by the Justice task forces, which are composed of prosecutors, agents from the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and local law enforcement officials in areas thought to be hubs of trafficking.
…
“The discrepancy between the alleged number of victims per year and the number of cases they’ve been able to make is so huge that it’s got to raise major questions,” Weitzer said. “It suggests that this problem is being blown way out of proportion.” The Department of Health and Human Services “certifies” trafficking victims in the United States after verifying that they were subjected to forced sex or labor. Only non-U.S. citizens brought into this country by traffickers are eligible to be certified, entitling them to receive U.S. government benefits.
…
Although there have been several estimates over the years, the number that helped fuel the congressional response — 50,000 victims a year — was an unscientific estimate by a CIA analyst who relied mainly on clippings from foreign newspapers…
…
Yet the government spent $28.5 million in 2006 to fight human trafficking in the United States, a 13 percent increase over the previous year. The effort has attracted strong bipartisan support.
Steven Wagner, who helped HHS distribute millions of dollars in grants to community groups to find and assist victims, said “Those funds were wasted.”
“Many of the organizations that received grants didn’t really have to do anything,” said Wagner, former head of HHS’s anti-trafficking program. “They were available to help victims. There weren’t any victims.”
. . .
Few question that trafficking is a serious problem in many countries, and the U.S. government has spent more than half a billion dollars fighting it around the world since 2000.
. . .
In the past four years, more than half of all states have passed anti-trafficking laws, although local prosecutions have been rare.
…
But information was scarce, so a CIA analyst was told to assess the problem in the United States and abroad. She combed through intelligence reports and law enforcement data. Her main source, however, was news clippings about trafficking cases overseas — from which she tried to extrapolate the number of U.S. victims.
…
Bipartisan passion melted any uncertainty, and in October 2000, Congress enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, significantly broadening the federal definition of trafficking. Prosecutors would no longer have to rely on statutes that required them to prove a victim had been subjected to physical violence or restraints, such as chains. Now, a federal case could be made if a trafficker had psychologically abused a victim.
. . .
Just as the law took effect, along came a new president to enforce it.
Bell, with Prison Fellowship Ministries, noted that when Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly in 2003, he focused on the war in Iraq, the war on terrorism and the war on trafficking.
Soon after Bush took office, a network of anti-trafficking nonprofit agencies arose, spurred in part by an infusion of federal dollars.
. . .
The CIA’s new estimate, which first appeared in a 2004 State Department report, has been widely quoted, including by a senior Justice Department official at a media briefing this year. It’s also posted on the HHS Web site.
But at a meeting of the task force this year, then-coordinator Sharon Marcus-Kurn said that detectives had spent “umpteen hours of overtime” repeatedly interviewing women found in Korean- and Hispanic-owned brothels. “It’s very difficult to find any underlying trafficking that is there,” Marcus-Kurn told the group….
The article is heavily edited to shorten to blog format and eliminated some of the history of the efforts to assess the situation, except to point out it is ‘bi-partisan’.
Of course I have a response, but am awaiting answers from experts I can contact. Stay tuned.
Angry Bear
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