VN, China work together to fight human trafficking, August 8

In anti-trafficking initiatives, it is important for destination and source countries to work with each other on combating cross national exploitation. An example in which organizations have taken up this ideology is evident in The Asia Foundation (http://www.asiafoundation.org/)

Article Source: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn/showarticle.php?num=05SOC080807

VN, China work together to fight human trafficking

(08-08-2007)

HA NOI — Vietnamese and Chinese police have stepped up co-operation in the battle against human trafficking.

Progress of the teams was reviewed at a workshop on the prevention and fight against human trafficking on Monday by the Vietnamese police and their Chinese colleagues.

Since 2006, police have uncovered 110 cases of trafficking women and children and arrested 214 suspects. In active coordination, Chinese police have rescued and returned 511 victims to Viet Nam.

In the review period, 149 cases of human trafficking to China were discovered, involving as many as 271 people, including 59 children. Victims were from rural and isolated areas in northern provinces.

Recently, there has been an increase in the number of victims from central, Central Highlands and southwestern provinces. — VNS

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Arrests made in Chinese human trafficking ring, August 5

Country Assessment:
http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/China.htm
http://www.humantrafficking.org/countries/china

Human Trafficking a Huge Problem in China: http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/Archive/2006/Mar/08-981845.html

From MaltaMedia.com
http://www.maltamedia.com/artman2/publish/local/article_2948.shtml

Local
Arrests made in Chinese human trafficking ring
By MaltaMedia News
Aug 5, 2007 - 4:50:45 PM

Five persons of Chinese origin were arrested by Italian police in connection with the organisation of illegal human trafficking based in Malta, Italy and China, Alice News reported.

The arrests were made in Rome, Palermo, Catania, Avellino and Ragusa.

The criminal group brought the Chinese migrants in Malta through the granting of a regular visa for studying purposes. The 200 Chinese were then accompanied illegally by motorboats to the Sicilian coasts.

Another eight persons within organisation, Alice News said, had been responsible for organising an illegal trip which had caused the death of two Chinese illegal immigrants in Donnalucata, Ragusa in November 2004.

Meanwhile, a Spanish resident was also arrested and another seven warrants against Europeans are expected to be issued.

Italian police disrupt Chinese human trafficking ring. August 3, Italy

http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=55325

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Italian police disrupt Chinese human trafficking ring

Italian police have arrested five people of Chinese origin who are said to have been involved in an organisation that allegedly arranged to bring irregular migrants to Malta en route to Italy, Alice Notizie and Capri News reported yesterday. According to the reports, the arrests were made in Rome, Palermo, Catania, Avellino and Rovigo. Another arrest warrant was issued in respect of a Spanish resident and seven more are expected to be issued in respect of other European residents. Officers of Ragusa State Police learnt that about 200 migrants with a regular visa that had been granted for study purposes had been brought to Malta on different occasions and had then been taken to Italy by motorboat, the Italian media reported. The reports said that the organisation also had a base in China and on one particular occasion – 29 November, 2004 – two Chinese irregular migrants had died at sea while they were being taken to Donnalucata, in the province of Ragusa.

Israeli police arrest nine citizens suspected of trafficking in organs

The Associated Press
Monday, July 23, 2007

JERUSALEM: Israeli police have broken up an organ transplanting ring that persuaded dozens of Israelis to have their kidneys removed in Ukraine for $30,000 (€21,700) each, a spokesman said Monday.

Nine Israelis suspected of trafficking in organs and humans have been arrested and remain in custody, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The case was opened when an Israeli woman filed a police complaint charging that she was not paid after her kidney was removed in Ukraine, Rosenfeld said. She had answered an ad in the local press, he said.

Police uncovered the ring by sending an undercover officer to pose as a potential donor, he said.

Army Radio quoted police as saying dozens of people may have been duped into donating organs. Ads seeking donors were published in the Russian and Arabic press, the radio said.

"We are talking about several incidents in which we located the people," a senior police commander, Lior Boker, told Army Radio. "I estimate that ... over a long period of time we are talking about a lot more people."

Israeli police have informed the Ukrainian police of the arrests, Rosenfeld said.

Israel allows transplants from relatives or anonymous donors, but the law forbids any sale of organs. Still, local and foreign laws are not sufficient to stop the sale of organs if people travel abroad, said Eitan Mor, executive director of the Israeli Transplantation Society.

"It's a jungle out there," Mor said. "As soon as Israelis go abroad to give organs this opens the door to trafficking in organs."

About 200 Israelis go abroad every year to receive transplants, most of them to receive kidneys, Mor said.

Police may have to release the suspects since Israeli law does not explicitly forbid trafficking in organs, said Meir Broder, a legal adviser to the Health Ministry. Draft legislation before Israel's parliament would make it illegal to transport or deal in organs, Broder said.

Israel has began cracking down on transplants abroad when organ trafficking is suspected, Broder said.

Since last year, Israeli health maintenance organizations have been required to question the source of organs transplanted into their members abroad. This has prevented Israelis from receiving state-funded transplants in China, he said, where human rights groups believe organs have been taken from executed prisoners.

Death sentence over China slave scandal, July 17, 2007

Jul 17 07:54 AM US/Eastern


One man in China was sentenced to death and 28 people were handed jail terms in the first convictions over a huge slavery scandal that shocked the nation, a judge said Tuesday.

Zhao Yanbing, a brickyard employee who confessed last month in footage broadcast on national television to killing a mentally handicapped slave, was given the death penalty, High Court judge Liu Jimin said.

The other defendants got prison terms ranging from two years to life.

"These cases have had a vile effect both domestically and overseas and can only be handled... in the most severe fashion," Liu said as he delivered his ruling, which was broadcast live on state television.

"Only with a fast verdict can we deter these crimes and safeguard citizens' lives."

However, human rights groups and some ordinary Chinese citizens on the Internet said those convicted could just be scapegoats, and accused the ruling Communist Party of trying to ensure that corrupt officials were not implicated.

The scandal surfaced last month after about 400 distraught parents posted a plea on the Internet about their children who had been sold into slavery in China's northern Shanxi province and neighbouring Henan.

They made their case public after police and local authorities refused to help find their children.

After the Internet postings prompted action from police and attention from the state-run press, disturbing images were broadcast of abused and emaciated workers being freed from brick kilns, with some young men too weak to stand.

Officials say 576 enslaved workers have since been rescued, but the true number of victims is widely believed to be far higher.

Parents initially said up to 1,000 youths had been working as slaves, but only 41 of those people officially rescued are children.

Zhao and the others who received the harshest penalties were involved in running what the state-run media has turned into the most infamous of the Shanxi brickyards.

The foreman, Heng Tinghan, was condemned to life in jail, while owner Wang Bingbing was given a nine-year sentence.

The kiln was located in a courtyard belonging to Wang's father, a local Communist Party village chief, but there has been no word on any punishment for the official.

After his arrest, Heng shocked the nation with his lack of remorse when he said: "I thought it was a fairly small thing to do."

Zhao, the man sentenced to death, was similarly placed in front of news cameras on June 15 and described in a matter-of-fact manner how he beat to death a mentally handicapped man, aged "57 or 58", for not working hard enough.

"His performance was bad, so I thought that I would frighten him a bit, " Zhao said.

"When I raised the shovel over him I never thought that he would get up and confront me, so I slammed the shovel down on his head."

Zhao was found guilty of illegal detention and intentionally causing harm.

Reaction on the Internet to Tuesday's ruling was swift, with many Chinese netizens calling for stiffer penalties.

"The verdicts are too light. At least the owner of the illegal brick factory and his father, who was also the party chief, should be sentenced to death too," said one post on popular portal Sohu.com.

China also announced on Monday that 95 Communist Party officials in Shanxi had been punished, but most just escaped with warnings.

Only six of them were senior officials in local governments. There has been no report on any punishments being doled out in Henan province.

"It's outrageous," Robin Munro, research director of the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin, said of this week's punishments.

"Clearly there is one law for ordinary citizens and another for entrepreneurs and party officials."

Arrests in Vietnam for child trafficking to China, July 17, 2007

ABC Radio Australia
Last Updated 17/07/2007, 21:42:00

Police in Vietnam say they've arrested three people for allegedly trafficking children to China, some of whom were forced to work as prostitutes.

The police say two young men from Hanoi were detained on Friday, while a 36-year-old woman from the northern province of Lang Son which borders China was arrested on Saturday.

Local media reports say police started investigating the case after getting a letter asking for help from a 15-year-old girl who had escaped from a brothel in China.

The girl is said to have told police she met the traffickers online, and had been raped before being sold in China as a sex worker.

The reports say the alleged traffickers admitted they had taken five children across the border, receiving hundreds of dollars for each.

Thailand's child trafficking industry, July 7, 2007

By Thembi Mutch
BBC News, Thailand


A report from the US state department has criticised Thailand for not doing enough to combat the illegal trafficking of women and children from Burma, Cambodia, Laos and China. Thembi Mutch meets women and children who have been caught up in Thailand's trafficking business.


Many bar girls are sending money to their families back home

"I came with my aunt from the countryside to work in the seaside resort of Pattaya," Keng says. She pauses.

"I worked as a waiter in a bar near here. At first I didn't realise it was even possible for men to have sex with men, or boys, and at that time I still looked like a boy. I was only 16 and my family had various problems, so I was just working everything out."

Keng is 22, very slim, and now an incredibly beautiful woman.

The operation to change from a man to a woman took place last year. It cost her several thousand dollars, which she earned as a prostitute on the streets.

There is nothing about her that suggests she was ever male - her voice is soft and she is dainty and feminine. I find myself really liking her quiet dignity and gentle manner.


"I do other work," she says. "I go to Bangkok, to the Grand Plaza or to the station, and collect boys between the ages of 11 and 13. I bring them back here to the bar. I usually try and get 10 boys or so, but if there have been police raids in Bangkok it can be harder to find boys.

"When I approach them I have to be very careful. For the first few days they obey me - some of them haven't eaten properly for weeks - but we still lock them in the attic at the bar, partly so they won't escape, partly so that the police or rescue agencies can't find them."

Child trafficking

Keng is a trafficker - a trafficker of children, into prostitution, mostly for Western men.

She tells me how she hires a van and goes to the countryside if she cannot find children in the city.

Keng herself was trafficked, says my researcher, and she is just as much of a victim, he argues, as the children she traffics. She has no other job options open to her, and she is shunned publicly in shops, restaurants and bars outside the red light district where she works.

Keng points to a child sitting on the road across from us: "That one," she says, "is from Cambodia. He was living on the street in Bangkok."

Later we interview this boy, Suni, who is jittery and incredibly nervous, and constantly smokes. He says he is 10.

He describes having sex with various men in a detached and disturbing way. He is more animated talking about the money he earns to play computer games or buy speed to get him through the night.

"You know," Keng says, "he has got a much better life with me than he ever had at home or on the street."

Groomed for sex

Prey Vang Province is one of the poorest regions in Cambodia. It is easy to cross from there into Thailand so each year thousands of children are trafficked across the border, often by parents.

In Buddhist cultures the debt owed to parents by children is deeply imbued into families, especially in the countryside where the idea of destiny is wholeheartedly embraced

One mother there told me how, two years ago, she had travelled to Pnomh Penh with three of her children to beg on the streets. She is illiterate, owns no land and this was a last, desperate bid to survive.

On the second day in the city, her nine-year-old girl disappeared. She is convinced her daughter was kidnapped for sex work.

Three other mothers she knows in the village tell a similar story.

In another village, a group of girls aged between seven and 13 tell me their experiences. They are articulate and open.

Four of them had been kidnapped and groomed for sex work for a month. They had travelled to the city with their families to beg, but once there, had been coaxed by the offer of a meal into a house in a suburb. Then they were locked away and made to watch pornography. Two girls escaped, and the other two were rescued.

Buddhist culture

In Buddhist cultures the debt owed to parents by children is deeply imbued into families, especially in the countryside where the idea of destiny is wholeheartedly embraced.

But poverty and a desire not to confront difficult issues - especially those around sexuality, rape and prostitution - means that many issues just get swept under the carpet.

Sometimes it is just greed that makes parents turn a blind eye to what they are letting their own children in for. But mostly, say the experts, it is ignorance and a lack of opportunities.

Those who have already been trafficked know the dangers. I asked the girls in the village what their advice to other children might be to avoid being preyed on by traffickers.

The youngest replies: "It's really difficult if your mum asks you to get money to feed the family, you want to help. But it's best to go to school, and not to beg."

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday 7 July 2007 at 1130 BST on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.