The Abduction and Trafficking of the World’s Most Vulnerable

“I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market", said the leader of the extremist group Boko Haram. Boko Haram linked a video declaring their intention to sell the 276 school girls they abducted on April 14th, 2014 in the Nigerian village of Chibok. The school girls were taken from a secondary school at gun point. The kidnapping of such a large number of school girls shocked the world.

However, what shocked the world even more was the Boko Haram’s proclamation of their plan to sell the young girls on the market. Reports have begun to circulate stating that some of the girls have already been sold to the soldiers of Boko Haram as brides for a price of $12. Other reports state some of the young girls were taken and sold in neighboring countries. If these reports are true, some of these young girls may be sexually exploited, or forced into domestic servitude, while others may be forced into indentured servitude and forced labor. People all over the world are calling for the return of the girls before any more are sold.

Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar industry. It can often be perpetuated by systems and countries that do not have frameworks in place to appropriately identify or respond to human trafficking. According to the 2014 Trafficking in Person Report (TIP), 156 countries out of 188 do not meet the minimum standards set forth under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). Out of these 156 countries, 23 countries do not put forth any efforts to comply with the minimum standards under TVPA[1]. These countries’ lack of compliance and action allows human trafficking to persist and remain profitable. Nigeria is considered a Tier 2 country; its government does not fully comply with the TVPA’s standards, in part because the government refuses to pass legislation that require traffickers to receive prison sentences. The government does not address labor trafficking and it does not implement formal training and procedures for the recovery and reintegration of victims. Nigerian gangs often abduct and subject large groups of women to forced prostitution, domestic servitude, and forced labor. Boko Haram is just one example of an organization that has abducted and sold a large number of girls.

Traffickers often abduct the most vulnerable populations, especially those who tend to be forgotten by society at large, such as orphans. Orphans are often targeted because they do not have families. They are often lured with dreams of a better life, a life they often never end up seeing. Instead, they are forced into a life of prostitution and forced labor.

While working for an organization that specialized in assisting incarcerated youth, I came into contact with young orphan girls who were forced to become drug mules or prostitutes. Their captors were violent and merciless. The girls were often beaten, raped, or threatened with abuse. Without family or a support system, they did not have anyone to trust or turn to in times of need.

These children without family ties or support systems possess vulnerabilities that make them susceptible to human trafficking. In some cases, orphans without family ties are sent to an orphanage, but even this safe haven can be exploitative. The Department of State’s 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report gave various examples of abuse and exploitation that occur within orphanages. In one case, children at an orphanage in Albania experienced sexual abuse by the operator of the orphanage and were trafficked out to pedophiles.

“Scam orphanages” are also becoming increasingly popular in tourist locations. These orphanages house and exploit children by forcing them to pretend to be orphans in order to receive donations from tourists. Parents send their children to these orphanages, unaware of the scam, in hope of a better future for their children. However, the children receive little education and are required by the operators to appear sad and destitute. Scam orphanages take finances and attention away from orphanages that need help. Government corruption tends to be prevalent in areas where most scam orphanages are located. Corruption further allows for these young people to be forgotten and left even more vulnerable.

As a result, orphans – both true orphans and those handed off to pose as them – are often recruited by pimps, gangs, and criminal organizations. Sometimes, it is their caregivers who exploit them. In a world where children are being taken and sold by the dozens, we cannot afford to let a single child go unnoticed and unprotected. As I intern for IOFA, I realize increasingly why advocacy and training on the issue is valuable. It is important to advocate for changes within systems that directly address trafficking prevention and response while providing staff at child-serving agencies with training to help identify the signs of human trafficking and be equipped to appropriately respond.

-Sausha Cutler, IOFA Program Development Intern

[1] Note: While the Tier 2 and 3 rankings indicate that a country does not meet TVPA standards to address human trafficking, the ranking does not correlate to the prevalence of human trafficking in each country.


Cited sources:

“Trafficking in Persons Report : U.S. Department of State Publication 11407”, Office of the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs and Bureau of Public Affairs (June 2007).

“Trafficking in Person Report: June 2014”, Office of the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs and Bureau of Public Affairs (June 2014).

“A Profitable Enterprise”, Retrieved from: http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/category/the-facts/the-number/.

“Boko Haram Could Make Good on Threat to 'Sell' Nigerian Girls”, Mike Brunker (May 2014). Retrieved from: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/missing-nigeria-schoolgirls/boko-haram-could-make-good-threat-sell-nigerian-girls-n97796.

"Cambodia's Booming New Industry: Orphanage Tourism", Morgan Hartley and Chris Walker (May 2013). Retrieved from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/morganhartley/2013/05/24/cambodias-booming-new-industry-orphanage-tourism/.

"Cambodia's Scam Orphanages", Poypiti Amatatham and Thomas Fuller (June 2014). Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000002940698/cambodias-scam-orphanages.html.

ChildRight: New York

Curious about IOFA's work in New York? 

The following infographic highlights the Phase I goals and accomplishments of ChildRight: New York, a special project aimed at developing a coordinated response to child sex and labor trafficking across New York State.  

Talibés: Victims of Forced Begging

Annie Vulpas is a MPH intern from The University of Illinois - Chicago with IOFA.  She reflects on her experience studying abroad as an undergraduate student in Senegal and bearing witness to a human rights violation.

               It wasn’t until recently that I realized I had been a witness of child trafficking everyday for nearly a year.  To the group of American women studying abroad at the Université Gaston Berger in Saint Louis, Senegal, the talibés were mainly a nuisance and many techniques were employed to avoid the filthy, poorly dressed little boys begging for money.  Sometimes we changed directions or crossed the street while walking when we saw a talibé coming; other times, we rudely ignored them or told them “bayyi ma!” (leave me alone!).

               The word talibé is from the Arabic word for student – talib.  The talibés in Senegal are young boys enrolled in Qur’anic schools, called daara in Wolof, where they live, often hundreds of miles from home.  In many of the daaras, boys are sent out early in the morning and forced to beg all day long for money, about $1-2 (500-1,000 fCFA), rice and sugar each day.  Failing to return with the required amount of goods or cash, the talibés will not be fed and are often brutally beaten.  The Qur’anic teachers, or Marabouts, are responsible for the treatment of these children and support their schools, which are often unsanitary and built out of poor building materials such as plastic and corrugated tin.

               As a young woman in my early 20’s, I acknowledged that something was wrong with the talibé situation in Senegal but acceptance of talibé begging by the general population clouded my understanding of the issue.  Many people saw the talibé experience as a rite of passage and since they begged as children, it only made sense that their children would also enroll in a daara under the tutelage of a Marabout.  Now, interning with IOFA and learning of the various ways that children are trafficked, I can see a bigger picture and, sadly, understand the crime that I bore witness to in Senegal.

               According to the 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report, Senegal – categorized as a Tier 2 country – is a “source, transit, and destination country for children and women who are subjected to forced labor, forced begging, and sex trafficking.”  Other forms of trafficking in Senegal include prostitution, domestic servitude and forced labor.  The government supports various shelters and rehabilitation programs in Senegal that provide shelter, food, medical and psychological care to victims of trafficking but statistics related to trafficking prosecutions and convictions are not maintained or published.  It is believed that approximately 50,000 boys between the ages of 3 and 19 are forced to beg for their daaras.

               Reflecting on my interaction with the talibés during that year, I feel a sense of guilt.  Although I was kind – or hoped I was kind to them – I feel guilt for being aware of the issue and instead of addressing my beliefs, letting others dictate my understanding of the situation.  The widespread moral disengagement of the Senegalese, or self-conviction that ethical standards do not apply to certain situations such as the forced begging of talibés, is fueling the abuse of these children.  Efforts have been made by various organizations in recent years to end the forced begging of talibés as awareness of the issue is growing, but such an obvious violation of human rights must be ended.  The boys of Senegal deserve to spend their days in classrooms learning rather than out in the streets begging and being rudely told to “go away” by unknowing and apathetic passersby.

For more information on this topic, please refer to the following sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2012/dec/11/senegalese-children-forced-beg-renegade-teachers

http://www.hrw.org/features/talib-s-senegal

http://plan-international.org/about-plan/resources/videos/senegal-reaching-talibe-child-beggars/

http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2013/215609.htm

What’s in a word: “Prostitution”

The FBI's recent recovery of 16 juveniles in a joint operation targeting commercial sex trafficking in New Jersey around the Super Bowl demonstrates law enforcement's vigilance and effectiveness in combating the sexual exploitation of children. However, it also conjures a somewhat misleading image of juvenile victim's experience in the commercial sex trade. 

IOFA program development intern, Alexa Schnieders, shares her thoughts on "child prostitution" and how our terminology reflects the identity we impose on a subject: 

I sat in on a discussion recently that began with, “Sex trafficking should be called rape trafficking.” Others in the room cringed over the harsh four-letter word. All innocuous and/or glamorous connotations of the sex trade disappeared as the reality of violence and exploitation took their place. Does semantics wield that much power? When speaking about sex trafficking, misuse of the term “prostitution” has the ability to strip sexually exploited women and men of all victimhood.

Prostitution is generally defined as “the act of engaging in sex acts for hire,” necessitating both consensual sex and received payment. According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), victims of sex trafficking engage in sexual acts under “force, threat or coercion.” This definition of sex trafficking aligns with rape, i.e. victimhood, however in sex trafficking situations there is the added element of rape for the profit of someone other than the survivor/victim.

The word “prostitution” becomes further problematic when it is partnered with the word “child.” Just as the TVPA informs us that someone forced to engage in sexual acts under force, fraud, or coercion is a survivor/victim of trafficking, so too does it state that any child under the age of 18 who engages in a commercial sex act is the survivor/victim of sex trafficking. Based on this legislation, a “child prostitute” simply cannot exist.

While the difference between the terms “survivor/victim of child sex trafficking” (also correctly referred to as “commercially exploited children”) and “child prostitute” may sound like a matter of political correctness, it is much more than that. Using the correct terminology signifies that children are the survivors or victims of a heinous, brutal crime. “Child prostitutes,” on the other hand, are young criminals. While the term “child prostitute” may more effectively grab the attention of a public who responds to sensational language, calling exploited children “prostitutes” perpetuates incorrect notions that these children willingly engage in sex (to which they are too young to consent) and that they are to blame for a choice (that they did not make).

This difference must be understood by all of us, including partners in the field. As advocates, learning and employing the appropriate terminology is our first step towards making change. Our language conveys our understanding of the issue as well as our intentions in our work. While we adopt language that correctly describes the population of survivors and victims we serve, it is our responsibility to encourage our partners to do the same. As the anti-trafficking movement uses this language more consistently, it is our hope that it will begin to affect the language used by those around us as well and that, little by little, the larger paradigm will shift towards one in which survivors of child trafficking are recognized as just that – survivors.

Our ChildRight: New York Trainings on Child Trafficking continue! Join us in Rochester!

The New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS)
&

The International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA)
are pleased to invite you to

Responding to Child Trafficking in Monroe County and Identifying and Assisting Trafficked Children in Monroe  County

As part of IOFA's NY ChildRight project, join us for free one and two-day trainings in Monroe County on child trafficking.

 

RESPONDING TO CHILD TRAFFICKING

(ONE-DAY TRAINING)

TUESDAY 

October 15th, 2013

From 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

IDENTIFYING AND ASSISTING TRAFFICKED CHILDREN
(TWO-DAY TRAINING)

WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY
October 16th and 17, 2013
From 8:30 a..m. to 5 p.m.

Register for our Training Series on Child Trafficking in Westchester County!

The New York State Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS)
&

The International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA)
are pleased to invite you to

Responding to Child Trafficking in Westchester County and Identifying and Assisting Trafficked Children in Westchester County

Please join us for an upcoming training series being held in Westchester County on child trafficking.

RESPONDING TO CHILD TRAFFICKING

(ONE-DAY TRAINING)

WEDNESDAY

September 25th, 2013

From 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

IDENTIFYING AND ASSISTING TRAFFICKED CHILDREN
(TWO-DAY TRAINING)

THURSDAY AND FRIDAY
September 26th and 27, 2013
From 8 a..m. to 4 p.m. 

 

Welcome to IOFA, Madeline!

I first learned about human trafficking while working as a Youth Development Counselor at a group home in New York City. There I worked with teenage girls in the foster care system who had suffered extreme abuses at the hands of loved ones. Several young women were survivors of child sex trafficking, but none of them were in the clear; they were still dealing with the physical and emotional scars left by their traffickers, and there were pimps waiting by our doorstep at night, hoping to pull them back into “the life.”

Seeing these realities led me to study the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and New York’s Safe Harbour Act during my MSW studies at McGill University. After gaining a detailed understanding of CSEC and the law, I continued to advocate for human trafficking victims as a fellow at the Polaris Project in Washington, DC.  I remained active in the fight against human trafficking as a fellow at the New York State Council on Children and Families. At the Council I gained critical insight into New York’s policy making process.

Now, I am very pleased to join IOFA’s team as Project Director of ChildRight: New York. The project strategically strengthens the child welfare response to human trafficking throughout New York by:

• providing training and technical assistance to direct service providers and professionals likely to encounter trafficked youth;

• gathering data on the CSEC population in New York;

• creating a validated screening tool to identify child victims of human trafficking; and

• developing a blueprint for a statewide operational framework to continue the implementation of the Safe Harbour Act.

It is our goal to use this opportunity to make a measurable impact in the implementation of the Safe Harbour Act so that New York can better identify and serve CSEC victims, and ultimately prevent the victimization of vulnerable youth.

I look forward to learning from New York’s many experts as we work together to meet the challenge of improving the state’s response to the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

Madeline Hannan, MSW
Project Director, ChildRight: New York
mhannan@iofa.org

Treating Children as Victims, Not Criminals

Child Sex Trafficking is one of the worst forms of human trafficking and child sexual abuse. It is a large, and growing, problem throughout the world and in the U.S.

Fast Facts

• 50% of transnational victims of human trafficking are children
• In India, it is estimated that 270,000-400,000 children are working in prostitution
• In Nepal, the problem is spread out all over the entire country. It is estimated that there are 800 girls working in the sex trade in the Kathmandu valley alone
• Young boys are often victimized in Pakistan ; often they are first hooked on drugs before they are forced to prostitute themselves
• In Sri Lanka, the average age of a child who is prostituted is 8-15 years old

What about in the U.S.?

• There are an estimated 300,000 American children at risk of sexual exploitation
• The average age that a girl is first victimized and prostituted is 12-14
• Over 50% of domestic victims are classified as runaway youth living on the street
• 55% of street girls become entangled in prostitution networks
• The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children conservatively estimates that 100,000 children are exploited each year for prostitution in the United States

What is being done to help these children in the US?

There are numerous steps that are being taken in the US to combat human trafficking. One important legal one is the passage of legislation known as the 'Safe Harbor Acts', acts that are intended to protect victims of child exploitation. The goals of the Safe Harbor Laws are to 

1. Prevent minor victims from being prosecuted for prostitution and
2. Protect Child victims of sex trafficking by providing them with specialized services

Safe Harbor Laws are important because they treat victims as victims as it gives them access to the services they need, and the ability to escape 'the Life' instead of being victimized twice; once by the pimps and a second time by the system.

New York was the first state to enact the Safe Harbor for Exploited Children Act in 2008. Several other states followed, including Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Ohio, Vermont, Connecticut, Tennessee, and Washington. The Texas Supreme Court also ruled on a case that children cannot be charged with prostitution.

In Illinois, the Safe Harbor Act for Exploited Children was signed by Governor Quinn on August 20, 2010.

Some key points

• If a child is under the age of 18, they are immune from prosecution of prostitution offenses. This is a change from the previous age of 16
• Children who are victimized by human trafficking or by prostitution now fall within the definition of an 'abused child.' This means that any law enforcement official who takes a child under 18 into custody for a prostitution offense must immediately repeat an allegation of Human Trafficking to DCFS. Within 24 hours, DCFS must begin their initial investigation
• The term 'Juvenile Prostitute' is eliminated from the criminal code, and replaced with minors engaged in prostitution.
• Finally, mistake of age is now not allowed as a criminal defense. A pimp or solicitor cannot argue that they thought the minor was above the age of 18

New York has similar legislation. In regards to services, the legislation goes a couple steps further to ensure that victims have an advocate during all steps of the process.

• Advocates: Must accompany child to court
• Housing: Safe Houses must, either directly or through written agreement with another agency, 
• Housing
• Assessment
• Case management
• Medical care
• Legal services
• Mental health and substance abuse services
• Must have service plan for
• Counseling and therapeutic services
• Education services including life skills, and planning services to transition back into the community
• OCFS must offer appropriate services to a sexually exploited child
• Section gives the department or any person the authority to file a care and protection petition or a CHINS petition if a sexually exploited child is unable or unwilling to participate in services

However, this is only nine out of 50 states that have such legislation. It is up to individuals to motivate their representatives to pass similar Safe Harbor Legislation. See the Polaris Project on ways that you can take action: http://www.polarisproject.org/what-we-do/policy-advocacy/assisting-victims/safe-harbor

Jasmine

Project Development Intern