Tag: Human trafficking

Tighter Laws Needed for Business Registration to Combat Human Trafficking

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Photo credit: Polaris Project, Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses
Photo credit: Polaris Project, Trafficking in Illicit Massage Businesses

A Polaris Project report has highlighted the current systems of ‘corporate secrecy’ as an inhibitor to exposing human trafficking networks. As a primary example, cases of illicit massage parlour businesses ‘flourish in secrecy’ due to the laws surrounding business registration, and the legal obfuscation of names of owners associated with businesses.

9000 parlours were analysed by a 2018 Polaris study in the United States, of which 6000 had no business records at all. 21% of these had an associated name listed, with no legal requirements to prove the identity legitimate. Although the current system lends towards business ownership anonymity at both a state and federal level, it is evident that this provides the opportunity for trafficking ring leaders to shield their identity, significantly limiting the capacity for regulation, enforcement and prosecution of traffickers.

In particular, effective law enforcement requires tackling the ownership of front businesses, which feed into larger organised crime networks. Not having the sufficient information contributes to a pattern of victim arrests during police raids, where owners are rarely on premises and usually untraceable. In order for enforcement operations to be effective, there is a demand for a policy shift that tightens the means to start an ‘official’ business, and the legal identification of owners to be essential for corporate transparency.

For the full report on How Corporate Secrecy Facilitates Human Trafficking, read here.

The Interconnection Between Slavery, Trafficking, Sexual Servitude and Terrorism

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Issues of slavery, sexual servitude and trafficking are embedded as financing means in wider terror networks. The revenue produced by these means is used to sustain terrorist organisations, including the likes of Da’esh, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Such financing means are being used to replace traditional fund raising. Instead slavery, weapon trafficking, sexual violence are increasingly used for money laundering to finance terror measures. This is engrained further due to the ideological justifications of sexual violence.

The total capital value of the slavery and sex market feeding on going terror networks is unknown. Some reports suggest kidnapping ransoms account for $10-30 million revenue to Da’esh in 2016. Other reports refer to a list they published, detailing ‘spoils of war’ including Yazidi women and children sold as sex slaves, virgins having been auctioned through social media for upwards of $12,000 each. Many accounts suggest terror soldiers use the promise of sex slaves in their recruitment process, and punishment of ‘non believers’.

In 2016 a specific Resolution 2331 of the Untied Nations Security Council was passed to address human trafficking within areas of armed conflict, recognising that these are ‘tactics’ for terror groups and are perpetrated mercilessly through the ‘strategic objectives and ideology’ of such groups. It states “that trafficking in persons undermines the rule of law and contributes to other forms of transnational organised crime’’. The UN Resolution 2331 encourages its member states to align their national policy with the wider intentions of Women, Security and Peace and the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime. It targets the financial mechanisms between trafficking, large crime rings in conflict zones and terrorism.

Illicit economies make it difficult to protect victims and identify and apprehend perpetrators. However slavery and sexual servitude are considered war crimes and crimes against humanity, which have universal jurisdiction under the Commonwealth Criminal Code, deeming the location and nationality of the defendants irrelevant. There is need for legislation to address this nexus, and for enforcement by international forces and agencies on the ground in conflict zones. The definition of terrorism in both national and international law must be broadened to include sexual violence as a tactic, amongst the wider UN resolutions on Women, Peace and Security.

Men Are Vulnerable To Trafficking As Labour Exploitation Rates Prove Higher Than Sexual Exploitation

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7th Annual Report: G R E T A Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings

The Council of Europe has released a report through the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA) which suggests labour exploitation is now the most significant form of trafficking in Europe, reflecting the rising trend in recent years. Alarmingly, it has taken over rates of sexual exploitation in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Cyprus, Georgia and Serbia.

Due to this shift, men are the most identified victims of human trafficking, however women and children are still severely affected. ‘Men are often exploited in industries including agriculture, construction and fisheries whereas women tend to be exploited in more isolated settings such as domestic or care work – where they are sometimes victims of both labour and sexual exploitation.’

The primary cause of these new ​figures points to the previous underestimation of labour exploitation against sexual exploitation rates, as there is relatively less targeted legislation, and there have been few successful prosecutions and convictions. With both forms of exploitation, victims fear reprisals ​from traffickers, ​which makes data collection difficult, as well as impacting on low conviction rates.

For the full 7th Annual Report: G R E T A Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, read here. 

Climate Change and Natural Disasters Induce Vulnerability to Trafficking

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Climate change increases the likelihood of natural disasters, forces groups of people into migration or resettlement from their original territory, and leaves people homeless, which are all high risk circumstances for trafficking. Environmental conditions should be a key factor in assessing socio economic wellbeing and security of a group of people against displacement, and in turn exploitation.

In contrast to refugees of war where majority of people that have been migrating are of middle or upper class, when faced with environmental catastrophe they may be pushed into a position of desperation and share the vulnerabilities if the poor. Through a sudden disaster, people may be thrust straight into poverty if all their assets, property and potentially lives are lost as there is often no safety net for unpredicted catastrophes. This shock and rapid displacement of people often attracts new traffickers to the affected area or encourages systems and crime rings already in place. As people are heavily dependant on their surrounding environment, they are suddenly put into situations of desperation for work people become targets for labour abuse or slavery. There is also risk of people becoming involved in the trafficking itself as a way to make income. This of course perpetrates the issue while bolsters the trafficking business in a disaster stricken area.

In slow onset environmental changes, such as sea level rise or temperature change, a similar trend occurs when it leads to forced migration. Traffickers may look to regions where recourses may be scarce or environmental changes cause a change in labour demand. For example drought causes the movement away form agriculture and into more industry driven roles in urban areas, giving traffickers a window for recruitment. Furthermore significant trafficking is seen at host regions or places of settlement, such as in urban slums. Often with very minimal beginnings, little education, work experience in cities or knowledge of their rights, migrants are mislead by ‘agents’ into exploitative work.

Women, men and children all face different risks to environment induced migration. If hit by disaster, children may be orphaned and at high-risk without the care of their parents, as seen after the 2004 Ocean Tsunami in South East Asia as records of child ‘abductions’ in Indonesia were much higher. Women are most often recruited for domestic work or sexual exploitation whereas men are most often forced into labour in inhumane and exploitative conditions. Such work is often in poor environmental conditions, including recourse extraction and dealing with toxic substances, for example palm oil extraction in south East Asia. This constitutes an abuse of their human rights and furthermore contributes to the supply chain of industry pollutants that cause climate change.

To combat this issue, there needs to be acceptance of the link between these climate change, migration and trafficking. There is need for awareness to be raised and regulation in times of disaster and on going migration, as the IOM monitors trafficking rates through their Migrant Crisis Operational Framework. National policy should avoid restriction of the movement of people, because this will push traffickers further underground or into the black market where exploitation thrives. Environmental migration should be regulated as a coping mechanism for victims, which requires international cooperation.

Children of the Refugee Crisis are Vulnerable to Trafficking

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Human trafficking has become one of the three largest organised crimes, along with small arms and drugs trade which all monopolise on the displaced people of the refugee crisis. Gangs already involved in trade of illegal substances exploit the opportunity in the modern slave trade that produces over $150 billion annually.

Modern slavery is a global issue, Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi highlights the highest number of slaves per country are in India, with over 18 million current victims. Europe’s refugee crisis exacerbates numbers, as approximately 10,000 lone children have been reported missing since entering the EU according to Europol data. In order to prevent their daughters being sold into slavery or for commercial sex, families of Syrian refugees are being pressured to arrange child marriages.

This month Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit 2018 is an international summit on Child Rights addressing the nexus between gangs, refugees and modern slavery. There is an emphasis on technological advancements such as facial recognition for missing children, as well as tighter enforcement amongst gangs involved in refugee migration and education amongst vulnerable victims to address the root causes.

For further information on exploitation of the refugee crisis by gangs see here.

Trafficking Victims Forced Into Illicit Massage Business

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There are over 9,000 known illicit massage parlours within the USA, with an estimated annual revenue of $2.5 Billion. This accounts for the second highest bracket of human trafficking.​

Workers ​in illicit massage parlours are often criminalised or punished for a job they may have been forced into. While some sex workers make the conscious decision to enter the line of work, many within the illicit massage business are victims of human trafficking and therefore work under conditions of force, coercion, fraud and deceit. Due to the underground nature of the business, crime lords and business owners have the ability to protect themselves and their own identities amongst the vast network of people involved. This poses a major issue as employees lower in the supply chain bear the consequences, on top of working under inhumane conditions.

Trafficking cases within massage parlours accounted for the second highest bracket in the USA in 2017, (to escort services as the first) with 2,949 out of 32,000 cases of trafficking recorded by National Human Trafficking Hotline. There are over 9,000 known illicit massage parlours within the USA, with an estimated annual revenue of $2.5 Billion.

However, these figures are a small estimation in the total scope of the problem. Naturally it is a crime that is difficult to quantify, as victims often do not know they are being taken advantage of or are manipulated into keeping quiet​, through threats and control mechanisms​. The victims are statistically most often women from China or South Korea, in their 30s-50s who have had children, speak very little English and are in positions of debt or financial pressures, in which they would have been taken advantage of by seeing this opportunity.

The perpetrators may use these vulnerabilities to fraudulently or deceitfully recruit women. The recruitment advertising often hides the sexual element of the work and also understates the pay, leading victims into debt to their traffickers. In addition, they may use coercion, legal and emotional manipulation, cultural shaming or deportation threats to force victims into commercial sex on an on going basis. Typical scenarios may be when women are told these circumstances are “normal in the USA” or “police are corrupt and will not help them”, or using blackmail by threatening to tell victim’s families of their sexual experiences. Their access to money, communication and national identification are most often confiscated.

The underlying cause of illicit massage businesses is to feed larger crime networks. ‘Front’ businesses are operated, including nail salons and laundromats, in order to launder money through and move victims between. However customers who engage in this business create the demand and therefore sustain the business.

According to the Polaris Project report, there are some obvious indicators as to which parlours are operating commercial sex, even if they do not openly advertise it. If they do, they promote to primarily male clientele through online sites such as Backpage.com and Craigslist. They will typically offer lower market price reflecting the wages of the women, if any. There will be private presentation of the business, often with windows covered and locks on doors with buzzer entry only. A significant indicator of trafficked victims is when the women live on site of the parlour.

The most effective way of combating trafficking in the massage industry is effective and local-national scale legal framework, with increased risk for the traffickers themselves rather than their employees forced into criminality or prostitution, with thorough law enforcement and consistent regulation. In the USA, 46 states reference industry standards for massage orientated businesses, yet these are usually only regulated on county or city level. Business operations including open hours, profit transparency, landowner responsibility should be enforced, and online advertising banned. On a broader scale, cross-state investigations into trafficking and crime rings should aim at the root of the issue, as well as avoiding media framing of ‘sex workers’ as the criminals rather than victims.

Traffickers Target the Vulnerable After Natural Disasters

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Traffickers will take opportunities to exploit vulnerable people, and natural disasters create high-risk scenarios. Traffickers target homelessness, and hundreds of people are left homeless with their property, lives and families exposed to recruiters. Tragically, rescue centres become a common point for traffickers to target, according to survivors in the Southern USA states of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida who periodically experience hurricanes.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Centre “one of the largest labor trafficking cases in United States history resulted from human trafficking that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina”. The higher demand for labour in the clean up and reconstruction of the affected area led to 5 men being recruited by traffickers and eventually paid out $14 million.

The threat of crime and exploitation needs to be built into the emergency and resilience strategies of societies against natural disasters. There is an abundance of agencies and organisations prepared to assist in disaster response, who must partner with local law enforcement and civil service to create awareness around human trafficking and protect the vulnerable against exploitation post disaster.

Read further reporting on natural disasters and human trafficking here.

World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos presents a New Global Fund to Reduce Modern Slavery

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Significant progress was made at last week’s 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos.

The discussions emphasised the alarming figures of today’s modern slavery crisis, with estimates stating 40.3 million people are currently in slavery worldwide, Gary Haugen, CEO of the International Justice Mission said there are more people in slavery today than were extracted from Africa over 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade. Haugen was one of the panelists at the forum who discussed a new fund, led by the US and UK, whose goal is to raise $1.5 billion (€1.2 billion) combat slavery. “The modern slavery problem is massive … but it’s more stoppable than it’s ever been,” commented United States Senator Robert Corker, chairman of Committee on Foreign Relations”. What is needed is a collective effort by companies and individuals and transparency in supply chains. Governments and consumers also have a role to play in holding business accountable.

Read further on the discussion on modern slavery at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos.

The Migrant Crisis and the rise in human trafficking

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Has the #MigrantCrisis become a #HumanTrafficking crisis? Read our latest on the escalating situation in Libya and the absence of appropriate international intervention: https://humantraffickingexperts.com/blog/

Driven by poverty, thousands of migrants have attempted the perilous journey from Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean. Despite the traditional focus on deaths at sea – claiming over 2,257 lives in the first half of 2017 alone –, there is increasing evidence that transit on dry land can also be fatal. Several reports have confirmed that stranded migrants are deprived of food and drink, sold for as little as $400 in discreet warehouse auctions, and are customarily subjected to torture and abuse by their captors. Following the clampdown on sea crossings by the European Union in an attempt to stem flows to the continent, 19,452 individuals have been intercepted by the Libyan coastguard and sent to detention centres in 2017 alone, many of whom have fallen prey to transnational criminal networks. The unparalleled concentration of ‘failed’ migrants in Libya has been accompanied by a rise in human trafficking and modern slavery victims.
 
Given the complexities of the migrants’ journey, it is a frequent occurrence that the definitions of trafficking and smuggling become obscured. Often victims will believe they are being smuggled but become trafficked through transit or at their destination country. Factors such as political instability, economic pressures and environmental issues are often the catalysts for migrants seeking to come to Europe. Illegal migrants often rely on organised criminal networks to facilitate their passage to Europe, leading to higher risk of exploitation and further blurring of the distinction between trafficking and smuggling. The migrant crisis in Libya provides a unique yet unfortunate opportunity for clarification: the controls aimed at ending the smuggling of migrants to Europe has been the catalyst of human trafficking inland.
 
The mounting public outcry at the extent of the crisis and uninterrupted progression has gradually set the European Union in motion, but has failed to create momentum in anti-trafficking initiatives. The only step to this effect is the recent agreement between Italy and Libya to create an operations centre against modern slavery in Libya. However, specific information on the centre’s concrete objectives, strategy and operation has not yet been made public.  After a scathing report by Amnesty International condemning the European Union’s role in enabling human trafficking and modern slavery in Libya via its support to the Libyan coastguard, it is hoped that the EU will be pushed into further action.