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<TD vAlign=bottom align=right><SPAN class=bluebold9>The Week of <SPAN
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size=5><SPAN class=bluebold16 id=ctl00_cphMainContent_lblTitle>The Black
Market in Human Beings </SPAN></FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=5><SPAN class=bluebold16></SPAN><BR><!--dek data--></FONT></STRONG><SPAN
id=ctl00_cphMainContent_lblDek>Police recently broke up a sex-smuggling
ring that had enslaved dozens of Korean women for brothels throughout the
Northeastern U.S. Wasn't slavery wiped out long ago?</SPAN> <BR><!--week_date data--><SPAN
id=ctl00_cphMainContent_lblWeekDate>12/8/2006</SPAN> <BR><BR><!--main_text data--><SPAN
id=ctl00_cphMainContent_lblMainText><STRONG>How widespread is
slavery?<BR></STRONG>Though outlawed around the world, slavery has made a
disturbing comeback. The slave trade is now the third largest type of
illegal trade in the world, after drugs and weapons, according to the U.S.
State Department. Between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across
national borders each year, the State Department reports, with up to
17,500 of them entering the U.S. The International Labor Organization
estimates that slave trading generates $31 billion annually. The traders
seem to be getting increasingly brazen: In June, British authorities
announced that "slave auctions" were being held in public places in
airports, with brothel keepers bidding on women arriving, under duress,
from Eastern Europe. "This is a new area," says Vernon Coaker, Britain's
top domestic security official. "It's something five, 10 years ago
perhaps, people very rarely talked of." <BR><BR><STRONG>Who are the
victims?<BR></STRONG>They encompass a broad range of ages, backgrounds,
and nationalities. "Nikkie," for instance, once lived in an impoverished
Thai village; she was just 14 when her father sold her to a pimp who took
her to Australia, where she was forced to service dozens of men a day.
Olena Popik, 21, of Ukraine, was pimped across five countries over the
course of three years and was still being rented out at Bosnian truck
stops even while she was dying from AIDS. Advocates say there are tens of
thousands of victims like Nikkie and Olena, caught up in a shadowy
international trade stretching from the farthest reaches of the
undeveloped world to sweatshops, massage parlors, and the private homes of
the wealthy in the U.S. and other Western nations. <BR><BR><STRONG>Why is
human trafficking flourishing?<BR></STRONG>Experts point to several
factors, including the end of the Cold War. The economic shocks that
accompanied the demise of the Soviet system thrust millions of Eastern
Europeans into desperate poverty and resulted in an explosion of criminal
rings capable of selling women into slavery. Globalization expanded that
phenomenon worldwide. In a world with increasingly porous borders, the
poor are willing to leave their homelands in search of jobs. "Olga," a
single mother from Moldova, is a typical case. She answered an ad in a
newspaper that offered to send locals abroad ostensibly to care for senior
citizens for $1,000 a month. Instead, a trafficker kidnapped her to a bar
in Kosovo, where she was severely beaten and forced to have sex with
patrons. With the help of a fellow victim, she finally escaped. An aid
group is helping to arrange for surgery to repair her two severely damaged
retinas. <BR><BR><STRONG>What's being done to stop
slavery?<BR></STRONG>The world is starting to take action, though victims'
advocates say far more needs to happen. Countries with the worst
records—including China, Laos, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico—say they are
cracking down on smugglers, while the U.S. has put diplomatic pressure on
such supply-side states to do more. In 2000, Congress set stiff new
penalties for human trafficking. But few malefactors have been prosecuted:
In the last five years, the Justice Department has tried just 91 cases.
"This offense is so serious, so pervasive, and so dynamic," said Mohammed
Ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the Economic Community of West African
States, "that only a coordinated effort of all states will be able to
address it successfully." <BR><BR><STRONG>Are slaves used only for
sex?<BR></STRONG>No, but most are. The Human Rights Center at the
University of California at Berkeley found that 46 percent of enslaved
people in the U.S. are pressed into some form of prostitution. Domestic
service accounts for another 27 percent; agriculture, 10 percent;
sweatshop or factory labor, 5 percent; and hotel and restaurant work, 4
percent. "There are so many faces on this," said Carole Angel, a former
attorney for the women's rights advocacy group Legal Momentum. "It happens
in rural communities, big cities. It spans all education levels, different
countries, different races." <BR><BR><STRONG>Do the victims ever
escape?<BR></STRONG>Rarely. The captors usually manage to keep their
victims under control by beating them and threatening them with death. In
most cases, only outside intervention—by authorities or a good
Samaritan—can free the captives. In one poignant case, a waitress who was
tricked into leaving Albania in 2002 was slaving as a prostitute in Italy
when a man from her old neighborhood recognized her. When he saw her
wasted frame, bruises, and purple cheekbones, he bought her a fake
passport and a ticket to Chicago, where he had friends. "I had no other
choice," he later explained. "I decided to help her as if she was my own
sister." <BR><BR><STRONG>Does everyone agree about the scope of the
problem?<BR></STRONG>Some experts have doubts. Advocacy groups and
international agencies have put forth some truly astounding
statistics—asserting, for instance, that 1 million children in Asia alone
are victims of the sex trade. Even the State Department's far more modest
estimates have been second-guessed. Measuring the scope of the problem is,
by all accounts, an inexact science, due to its far-flung and often remote
origins. Still, nobody disputes that the problem is getting worse. "Some
of these things may be happening in lovely homes in suburbia," says Joanne
Parrott, a Maryland state legislator and anti-slavery activist. "I don't
think we've seen the tip of the iceberg."</SPAN> <BR><BR></DIV><!-- BEGIN GREY BOX AT BOTTOM --><!--if sidebar is not blank then-->
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width=1 border=0> <BR><!--sidebar data--><SPAN
id=ctl00_cphMainContent_lblSidebar><STRONG>The Prisoners Next
Door<BR></STRONG>Modern slavery frequently involves not just single
victims but many. In August, local and federal authorities arrested
31 people who had been operating houses of prostitution in Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Rhode Island,
and Washington, D.C. Fifteen months in the making, the bust began
when Gina Kim, a suspected madam in Flushing, N.Y., allegedly paid
an undercover police officer $125,000 to secure protection for her
operation. Through wiretaps and surveillance, authorities found a
trail that led to 19 brothels that were masquerading as massage
parlors, health spas, and acupuncture clinics. Ultimately, the
police freed 71 Korean women who had paid tens of thousands of
dollars apiece to enter the U.S. illegally, only to be forced into
sexual bondage until their debts were paid. "These are women who
have been mentally and physically broken down in every way," says
federal immigration official Julie Myers, "in order to achieve a
mental state in which they can no longer fight or try to
escape.”</SPAN> <BR><BR></TD>
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