Source:
Financial TimesBy Harvey Morris at the United Nations
Published: February 13 2009 02:00 | Last updated: February 13 2009 02:00
The global economic crisis threatens to swell the ranks of victims of human trafficking, the 21st century's hidden version of slavery, according to the United Nations anti-crime chief.
"My hunch is that it will make more people vulnerable," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime. "The impact of the economic crisis will push more business underground to avoid taxes and unionised labour."
Mr Costa said a focus on the sexual exploitation of women and girls shipped across the world had overshadowed the plight of other victims of people smugglers.
"Sexual exploitation is more visible. Sweatshops and bondage and mines and plantations are more difficult to locate," he said in an interview to coincide with publication yesterday of his department's first comprehensive survey of available data on the issue ...
Read more:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8ce607fe-f971-11dd-90c1-000077b07658.html
World in denial about trafficking, says UN
By Archie Bland
Friday, 13 February 2009
Many of the world's governments are in denial about the extent and seriousness of human trafficking in which women are often significant offenders, according to a report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
The study is the first comprehensive look at the world's trade in humans, drawing on evidence from 155 countries. It warns that the failure to prosecute modern-day slave traders means that efforts to fight the practice are severely hampered ...
"It's sick that we should even need to write a report about slavery in the 21st century," said UNODC's executive director, Antonio Maria Costa. The report found many countries, including China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, failed to collect useful data on the problem.
Global conviction rates for human trafficking remain as low as 1.5 per 100,000 people. While a fifth of countries, many of them African, have no such offence on their books, the problems extend to many countries which have legislation in place: nearly 40 per cent of the countries examined have failed to record a single conviction.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/world-in-denial-about-trafficking-says-un-1608234.htmlUN
Human trafficking ignored by many countries
February 12, 2009, 18:08
... UNODC said although sexual abuse was suffered mainly by women and girls, women accounted for the majority of traffickers in almost a third of the 155 countries surveyed.
Twenty percent of victims were children, but they were the majority in Southeast Asia's Mekong region and parts of Africa.
"Children's nimble fingers are exploited to untangle fishing nets, sew luxury goods or pick cocoa. Their innocence is abused for begging or exploited for sex as prostitutes,“ UNODC said.
About 79 percent of human trafficking involved sex slavery while 18 percent covered forced or bonded labour, forced marriages and organ removal ...
http://www.welt.de/english-news/article3195428/Human-trafficking-ignored-by-many-countries.htmlWomen worst offenders in aiding sex trade: UN report.
By Steven Edwards
Canwest News ServiceFebruary 12, 2009
... The 292-page study says this is particularly surprising because organized crime is, in general, an overwhelmingly male activity.
The report also says many of the female traffickers are themselves former sex slaves, while women offenders have in general, a more prominent role in human trafficking than in any other crime.
``It is shocking that victims become traffickers,'' said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime, which released the report Thursday ...
Costa said that ``women trafficking women is the norm'' in Eastern Europe and in Central Asia. But the report shows that even in the Western European countries of France, Germany, the Netherlands and Portugal, the proportion of women convicted of human trafficking outstrips female conviction rates for all other crimes combined ...
http://www.canada.com/Women+worst+offenders+aiding+trade+report/1282887/story.htmlUN urges gov'ts to enforce laws to fight human trafficking
www.chinaview.cn 2009-02-13 06:32:49
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- ... The appeal was made in the world body's Global Report on Trafficking in Persons issued by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which provided the first global assessment of the scope of this scourge and what is being done to fight it ...
The number of member states seriously implementing the UN Protocol against Trafficking in Persons, the foremost international agreement in the area which entered into force in 2003, has more than doubled from 54 to 125 out of the 155 states covered ...
Forced labor, which is less frequently detected and reported than trafficking for sexual exploitation, is the second most common form of human trafficking, the report said.
"How many hundreds of thousands of victims are slaving away in sweat shops, fields, mines, factories, or trapped in domestic servitude? Their numbers will surely swell as the economic crisis deepens the pool of potential victims and increases demand for cheap goods and services," the UNODC head said ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/13/content_10810642.htmWomen the new pimps in human trafficking trade
Yuko Narushima
February 13, 2009
... After sex, the second most common trade was in forced labour. These victims were harder to identify than sex slaves, whose work was highly visible and concentrated in cities and along major roads, the report said. By contrast, forced labourers worked in mines, factories and in private homes as domestic slaves.
"Their numbers will surely swell as the economic crisis deepens the pool of potential victims," Mr Costa said.
The view was echoed by Jennifer Burn, the director of the Anti-Slavery Project at the University of Technology, Sydney. She said Australia's visa system was open to exploitation. "We have a visa system built around the idea that we have a skills shortage," Professor Burn said.
Trafficked people could arrive as students and temporary skilled workers, and more sophisticated methods of protecting and detecting these people were needed, she said. Increased public awareness of modern-day slavery was necessary to snuff out the demand for it, she said. Instances of trafficking were under-reported, and often victims did not identify as such ...
http://www.smh.com.au/world/women-the-new-pimps-in-human-trafficking-trade-20090212-85zr.html?page=-1UN calls for trafficking action
... The report points out that the most commonly used term for the problem - "people-trafficking" - itself emphasises the transaction aspects of the crime, rather than the day-to-day experience of modern enslavement.
And it suggests the trafficking phenomenon is little understood in all its forms from child soldiering to sweatshop labour, domestic servitude, and even entire villages in bondage ...
"What we know is the tip of the iceberg, but have no assessment of the iceberg itself," Mr Costa told the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7886461.stm
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
