Stop Child Slavery

Only 27 states have criminal trafficking statutes.

In Ohio, for example, there are no laws against human trafficking. Law enforcement officials are only able to exact justice if other crimes, like rape or assault are involved. Federal law prohibits human trafficking, but many states are left with holes in their ability to combat these crimes themselves.

I’m left scratching my head. Really?  

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Modern-day slavery is a $32 billion industry and Not For Sale is dedicated to freeing the 27 million people this industry enslaves and enacting strategies to undercut both the supply and demand for slaves.

Over the next few months, each time someone registers to vote in the monthly competitions, OurStage will donate $2 to the Not For Sale Campaign. It couldn’t be any easier and the voting is actually fun!

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When you read the Hindustan Times, the numbers aren’t easily discerned. Today, the headline reads, Four Lakh Children Slogging In Cotton Fields: Report. To a US reader, the word “lakh” may seem like the name of a province. But a lakh is not an area of India. A lakh is equal to 100,000. It’s a large number. Too large.

Based on the field research done by Glocal Research, the report said that out of the total number of children involved in child labour in the cotton industry, 2.25 lakh are below the age of 14.

The report also said that the children are made to work for 8 to 12 hours with a paltry earning of Rs 20 to 30 per day. “They are routinely exposed to poisonous pesticides and often trafficked as migrants from other districts and states,” the report said.

While in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat more than 80% of the children are trafficked, North Gujarat ‘receives’ tens of thousands of children from Rajasthan every year. The children often live in makeshift shelters and are vulnerable to mental, physical and sexual abuse, the report said.

Two large multinational companies were named in the report, Monsanto and Bayer.

A report like this calls into question Monsanto’s seemingly hollow pledge to “convert values to actions and results, and to make clear who we are and what we champion.” It’s hard to imagine that those at the very tops of the organization are not aware of these practices. So their actions make clear what they champion.

With Bayer, the irony is even more evident. Their slogan, Science For A Better Life, may sound nice, but not if that is not extended to a better life for these force child laborers. Not surprising however, given that “a will to succeed” and “a passion for our stakeholders” come ahead of other stated values, like “integrity openness and honesty” and “respect for people and nature.”

In my experience, big business clearly holds some values more valuable than others.

I just finished watching the trailer for TRADE, opening in theaters on Friday, September 28.

TRADE was inspired by a NY Times Magazine story on sex trade in the United States, “The Girls Next Door.” It was written three years ago, but it’s still very relevant. It’s long, detailed and a must read. Written by Peter Landesman, the article attempts to paint a verbal picture of a reality even hardened police officers could not believe after first hand experience.

“On a tip, the Plainfield (NJ) police raided the house in February 2002, expecting to find illegal aliens working an underground brothel. What the police found were four girls between the ages of 14 and 17. They were all Mexican nationals without documentation. But they weren’t prostitutes; they were sex slaves. The distinction is important: these girls weren’t working for profit or a paycheck. They were captives to the traffickers and keepers who controlled their every move. ”I consider myself hardened,” Mark J. Kelly, now a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security), told me recently. ”I spent time in the Marine Corps. But seeing some of the stuff I saw, then heard about, from those girls was a difficult, eye-opening experience.”

The police found a squalid, land-based equivalent of a 19th-century slave ship, with rancid, doorless bathrooms; bare, putrid mattresses; and a stash of penicillin, ”morning after” pills and misoprostol, an antiulcer medication that can induce abortion. The girls were pale, exhausted and malnourished.

It turned out that 1212 1/2 West Front Street was one of what law-enforcement officials say are dozens of active stash houses and apartments in the New York metropolitan area — mirroring hundreds more in other major cities like Los Angeles, Atlanta and Chicago — where under-age girls and young women from dozens of countries are trafficked and held captive. Most of them — whether they started out in Eastern Europe or Latin America — are taken to the United States through Mexico.”

The trailer is powerful. And while it’s impossible to judge the quality of a movie by the theatrical trailer, I can only hope the presence of an Academy Award winning actor, Kevin Kline, and an Academy Award nominated writer, Jose Rivera, will drive many to see it and recognize how pervasive the issue of child slavery is. Last week, the film was screened at the United Nations to help illustrate the cruelty of child slavery and sex trafficking.

Unfortunately, I was one of the 25% who said that this is a problem that must be approached on a political level. Though I am hopeful that this film will indeed raise consciousness of the issue. The more voices we have making noise, the stronger the possibility of change in the right places.

“There is something about the nature of this whole business where people just prefer to look away,” Kevin Kline said. “The network is vast and very efficient. Billions of dollars are at stake and they mean business, these trafficking rings.” (Source: BostonHerald.com)

The movie’s website has a “Get Involved” link that highlights a large number of organizations formed to end human trafficking: Human Rights Organizations Involved With Slave Trade.

This headline caught my eye today.

“Human Trafficking in Minnesota Conference.” Several months ago that headline would have surprised me. Human trafficking in Minnesota?

Yes. Even Minnesota.

Panel discussions will focus on everything from Case Management for Trafficking Victims, the Response of the Religious Communities, to State Legislation and Law Enforcement Efforts to Help Human Trafficking Victims.

Child slavery is evil. Pure and simple.

It’s hard to look at, harder still to contemplate for any period of time. The images, both visual and mental, make you want to turn away. I know this experientially.

Today, I was reminded that evil lurks everywhere. I heard about it first on talk radio. I read the story when I got home. In my home state, six men and women kidnapped a 23 year old woman and held her captive for a week. They brutalized her, tortured her, and raped her repeatedly. They made her a slave to their sick desires. They were white. She was black. Everything they did to her was done because her skin was darker than theirs. This happened just outside of Charleston, West Virginia.

What hit me was this: Every day, all over the world, children are treated just this way. Every single day.

Turning away, even for a short time, can’t be an option.