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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>This is one of the real problems that we have in
this country...not some of the stupid ones the dems keep fighting for or some of
the ones the repuds do either.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=deco@moscow.com href="mailto:deco@moscow.com">Art Deco</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=vision2020@moscow.com
href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com">Vision 2020</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, December 10, 2006 11:34
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> [Vision2020] The Black Market in
Human Beings</DIV>
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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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src="http://www.theweekmagazine.com/shared_images/transparent.gif"
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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