(IOM/TNA) -- The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Thailand's Ministry of Social Development on Monday signed a counter-human trafficking pact extending a decade of cooperation.
The Thai Ministry of Social Development and Human Security (MSDHS) endorsed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Cooperation in the Implementation of Projects Addressing Trafficking in Persons and Assistance to at- Risk Groups.
Monday's MOU will facilitate and strengthen the establishment of a cooperation framework focusing on five areas:
-- cooperation in establishing care and assistance programmes for victims of trafficking, including: victim screening and identification procedures; building referral mechanisms and institutionalizing 'good practice' shelter management arrangements; and establishing operational standards and arrangements for the return of victims.
-- training and other capacity building support to Thai MSDHS staff, other relevant government officials, and others responsible for implementing national policies and programmes on human trafficking.
-- extending bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Thailand and other concerned countries on the issue of return and reintegration of victims.
-- help to develop bilateral and multilateral agreements, MOUs and standard operational procedures supporting bilateral cooperation on trafficking between Thailand and other countries in the best interest of the victims.
-- developing national awareness-raising and prevention strategies to reduce vulnerability to trafficking though cooperation with the ministry's provincial offices.
The power of media/advertisements are evident in understanding human trafficking / commercial sexual exploitation. While this article illustrates how language is used to gloss over the full scope of what an individual may experience in applying for an ad such as the one below, what is also important is recognizing how gender, race, and sexuality are also represented in advertisements.
A charity warns the adverts will lead women into prostitution
A government website aimed at helping people find work has been condemned for advertising escort jobs.
Jobcentre Plus is part of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and its website offers several personal escort positions around the country.
A charity which helps sex trade workers says the ads, for jobs paying up to £100-an-hour, will "clearly" lead women into prostitution.
A DWP spokeswoman said a court ruling meant it could not refuse the adverts.
One of the adverts - for a unisex escort agency - is seeking people in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire.
They have to be free to work between two and 15 hours a week and available day and night, Monday to Sunday. The job, the website states, is permanent and no pension details are available.
The job description reads: "Duties involve providing clients with a personal escort service in an unsupervised environment.
"Experience is preferred but is not essential. Duties will involve escorting and accompanying members of the public which may cause embarrassment to some people.
"Some cash handling will also be involved."
'Career choice'
But Frances Broderick, from charity Eaves, told Channel 4 news that the adverts were "clearly helping women into prostitution".
"I'm shocked that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are even advertising this as an opportunity," she said.
"It's clearly not a suitable career choice for the DWP to be promoting."
Labour MP Fiona MacTaggart, a former junior Home Office minister, told the programme: "At the moment, it's quite legal to buy or sell sexual services and I think maybe the time has come to tackle that, to actually change the law... to make it illegal to buy sex."
But the adverts cannot be banned by the website following a court ruling four years ago in a case brought by the sex toy and lingerie chain Ann Summers.
A DWP spokesman said: "The High Court over-turned Jobcentre Plus's policy which did not accept certain types of adverts connected with the sex and personal service industries."
He added there were safeguards in place to ensure customers were fully aware of the nature of the jobs and no benefit sanctions would occur if they did not apply for such vacancies.
Asian pop stars back fight against human trafficking
Tue Aug 7, 2007 9:48PM IST
By James Pomfret
HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Two of Asia's hottest pop acts, Thailand's Tata Young and South Korea's Rain, are to help highlight the fight against rampant human trafficking in Asia in an MTV-backed initiative on Wednesday.
"How could people do this to each other?" Thai pop sensation Tata Young told Reuters by phone from Bangkok.
"To hear all these stories of children and women and men going through human trafficking and exploitation, it hurts me so bad," added the confident, brassy 26-year-old, whose skimpy outfits and best-selling albums have led to her being dubbed Asia's Britney Spears.
Young will help host shows and documentaries on youth music channel MTV which is aiming to raise awareness of what has been described as a "tragic form of modern day slavery" in collaboration with the U.S.-based Agency for International Development (USAID).
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) says economic disparities in Asian countries such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia fuel the trafficking of children and women towards Thailand.
Australia, Hong Kong, China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan are also considered major destinations by the ILO for the trafficking of prostitutes from Indonesia and the Philippines.
Human trafficking is a major global problem, particularly in Asia and Africa. The United Nations estimates 2.5 million people are currently coerced into forced labour or prostitution in a trade worth $7-10 billion annually.
Another Asian star, South Korea's King of Pop, Jung Ji-Hoon -- better known as Rain, will also help MTV publicise the cause.
APD arrests two in human trafficking ring 8/6/2007 6:04 PM By: News 8 Austin Staff
Austin police have arrested two men in connection with a local prostitution and human trafficking ring.
Gustavo Luna and Javier Torres-Cruz have been charged with aggravated promotion of prostitution.
They're accused of forcing female immigrants to serve as prostitutes as payment for getting into the United States.
APD says it's a vicious cycle that never seems to end.
"What happens is what you're brought here for and the kind of work you're forced into almost becomes a way of life. And becomes like the Stockholm syndrome where you feel you become indebted to and comfortable with the person who is holding you against your will," Duane McNeil of APD said.
Investigators say the ring is operated through business cards that are passed out to prospective clients in the area.
Bail for Luna and Torres-Cruz has been set at $100,000 each.
Alberta woman's disappearance now looks like case of human trafficking
By GLENN KAUTH, SUN MEDIA
Carol-Lynn Strachan shudders whenever she hears of Edmonton prostitutes going to work in Las Vegas.
"I tell them don't go, and find out who you're working for," said Strachan, a local sex-trade advocate.
Strachan's concern is the rise in human-trafficking cases in the Las Vegas sex trade.
Just recently, authorities there revealed they believe Jessie Foster, an Alberta woman missing since March 2006, is the victim of a possible trafficking ring.
"This sounds like a really bad detective movie that never ends," said her father, Dwight Foster, from Calgary yesterday.
Dwight called his daughter's case a "textbook" example of trafficking in which a pimp lures young women to places like Las Vegas with the promise of bright lights and big money.
Once they get to Sin City, they essentially become slaves to pay off the pimp for bringing them there.
"The problem is the debt keeps rising. The debt never goes away," said Terri Miller, program director with the Las Vegas-based organization, the Anti Trafficking League Against Slavery.
In Foster's case, the 21-year-old went to Las Vegas in order to join her boyfriend, Peter Todd, who told her he had lots of money and who at first showered her with a life of luxury, Dwight said.
Since she went missing in March 2006, however, the family has since learned she had earlier been arrested for prostitution.
What makes a sex worker a victim of trafficking is the element of coercion and fraud, said Miller. Victims can't leave the trade because of the debt, and in many cases they're kept hidden and cut off from family and friends.
"Most of the time, there's some sort of threat against their safety, the safety of their family," said Miller.
The only way out of the trap, she added, is to pay off the debt or get help from an organization like hers.
Tragically, though, some victims end up dead either through suicide or murder, Miller noted.
Like Strachan, JoAnn McCartney, a former Edmonton vice cop who counsels prostitutes, warns local sex workers about the lure of Las Vegas. She's been involved in incidents where parents have had to sneak plane or bus tickets to their daughters trying to escape controlling pimps.
"They're subject to a whole lot of violence once they get there," she said.
"The only thing you can tell them is (that) whatever sounds too good to be true probably is," she added.
Foster's mother Glendene Grant, meanwhile, said the fact her daughter is now considered a suspected victim of a trafficking ring means police in Las Vegas are now taking her case more seriously.
"It's not just a person who went to Las Vegas who wandered off. It's a whole lot bigger than that," she said yesterday from Kamloops, B.C.
While both she and Dwight are prepared for the fact Foster may be dead, they hope her case will at least make people aware of the dangers of trafficking.
"It's a little late for my daughter, but if we can get to and educate one girl, then we've made inroads," said Dwight.
Major police probe as immigrant Roma children exploited
A CHILD prostitution ring which is sexually exploiting immigrant Roma children as young as nine is operating in Glasgow, the Sunday Herald can reveal. Police have been running undercover surveillance operations in empty homes and unmarked cars in the Govanhill area in the southside of Glasgow for months in the hope of catching those behind the ring and the men paying to have sex with children.
Our investigation has also uncovered: l That high-grade intelligence about the ring led to the mounting of the covert operations; l An eyewitness who saw at first hand the sexual abuse of Roma children on the streets of Govanhill; l The name of the key suspect thought to be the leader of the child prostitution ring - a Roma man from eastern Slovakia now living in Govanhill.
Last night, Superintendent Mike Dean, who is leading the inquiry from Gorbals police station, confirmed that undercover detectives were hunting those behind the child prostitution ring and called on the public to help the investigation.
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Jim Miller, from Govanhill, told the Sunday Herald how he stumbled upon a child being forced into prostitution on Allison Street, one of Govanhill's main thoroughfares. Miller has already given a statement to the police.
"Roughly two months ago," said Miller, "I was out walking my dog at about 10.15 in the morning. The dog ran into a close which was filled with rubbish, bin bags and old bedding.
"It was dark, and as I walked through the close I saw a man with his trousers around his ankles having full sex with a young Roma girl who was about nine or ten. The man had made the girl stand on a car battery in order to have sex with her.
"The guy just looked at me," said Miller. "I was flabbergasted. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The wee lassie looked totally bewildered."
Miller says he hurriedly left the close in order to get the police and spotted a Roma man waiting outside. At the same time the man he had seen having sex walked out of the close, as did the young girl. The Roma man, waiting outside, took the little girl by the hand and got into a nearby car, with a third man at the steering wheel, and drove away. Miller said he noticed that the girl walked with a limp.
The Sunday Herald knows the identity of the Roma man believed to have been pimping the child. Police sources confirmed that he was known to the police and a possible suspect in the child prostitution ring.
Miller quickly located two police officers, informed them of the events and passed on the car registration number. Miller says that when he returned to the scene there was a used condom and tissues at the site. "I was almost hysterical by this point," said Miller. "I'd just seen a child being raped in broad daylight."
Police say they have received various reports of child prostitution in the Govanhill area. The ages of the children allegedly involved ranged from nine to 14.
Police are concerned that allegations could ramp up racial tensions in an area already under inter-ethnic strain. Many locals in Govanhill from the Pakistani and white communities are openly racist about Roma people.
Miller stressed he was speaking out because a crime had been committed against children, not because he was racist. "What I have a problem with is what I saw happening to that little girl in that close. It made me feel sick."
Another Govanhill resident, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed he saw an incident in which two boys aged between seven and nine - who appeared to be of Roma origin - were engaged in a sex act together in the backyard of his tenement building.
The man said: "I realise that this could be used as a recruiting sergeant by racists and the BNP, but I have to speak out as we are talking about child protection." The man feared that the children may have been abused.
A senior police source said: "We've had directed and targeted surveillance based on intelligence about the abuse of children involved in prostitution. This intelligence specified particular areas in Govanhill and related to the Roma community. At least six separate incidents involving the alleged abuse of children have been reported to us."
When asked if the allegations could have been exaggerated or made up by racist members of the community, the senior police source said: "In this case, I have to say that I think it's a matter of no smoke without fire. There have been many allegations by people in the area about child prostitution."
Undercover police officers involved in the Govanhill operations have been told that they must blow their own cover the moment it appears that a child is about to be abused. "We're there to save kids, not wait for a child to be abused up a close before making an arrest," the senior police source added.
There have so far been three separate periods of undercover surveillance in Govanhill - each lasting a week. The senior police source said: "Such action only takes place on the back of good intelligence, or if numerous sources of intelligence are saying the same thing."
Superintendent Dean said: "We are aware of allegations about child prostitution in the Govanhill area. Certain police operations have taken place but have so far failed to identify the perpetrators. I would appeal to the public to come forward if they have any information about this matter. The abuse of children cannot be tolerated.
"If we find any evidence of child prostitution we will come down with the full force of Strathclyde Police."
Dean said the allegations should not be seen as a reflection on the Roma community: "The Roma community would be up in arms itself if the people were aware of these allegations."
He added: "If anyone is offered a child for the purposes of child prostitution I want to hear from them immediately. If they do have information but do not want to come forward I would challenge them to look at their conscience."
Police sources say that the Roma man suspected of involvement in the ring was linked to agencies in Slovakia who brought Roma people to Scotland with the promise of jobs and housing.
The police say he makes some of his money in Glasgow as a gang boss by getting employment for Roma men in low-skilled labouring jobs or picking fruit and then taking a cut from everything they earn. He recently bought a new home in Slovakia. There is suspicion that he may also be involved in the drugs trade.
Sidney Ford: Time is now for Baltimore to add a prostitution court
Aug 2, 2007 3:00 AM (1 day ago) by Sidney Ford, The Examiner
BALTIMORE ( Map, News) - A small group from the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office, advocacy organizations and neighborhood associations recently visited a community court in Washington. We wanted to learn more about how Baltimore might develop a “prostitution court.” The courts are designed to break the cycle of prostitution-related incarceration and suffering through specifically designed services and partnership with the judicial system.
A young woman who had successfully completed substance abuse treatment and other requirements of her probation stood before one of the judges that day. She was to be released from further obligations to the court, but was clearly still traumatized by her chaotic behavior. Like our best judges, this one praised her worthy efforts, and encouraged her to continue to lead a productive life. When asked if she had anything to say, she whispered, “thank you, judge. Please, just don’t hurt me anymore.”
This notion of being hurt by the system, while also being helped by it, struck a chord with me. I’ve met so many women and girls who are forced into prostitution by circumstances larger than their own personal decisions and are kept there, often in enormous pain, by individuals and systems which in many ways prevent their escape.
Children who feel abandoned and abused frequently run away from home often into the arms of strangers who say they care, but then abuse them. One of our clients, “Casey,” was given to the landlord by her mother each month in lieu of rent when she was 9 years old. He raped her and then returned her to her mother. Casey’s attempts to tell others about this nightmare were unsuccessful. She ran away at 13 and was prostituted by a series of men and women “high class” pimps who ran a lucrative escort service in Las Vegas, and then by street-level pimps here in Baltimore. Eventually, however, Casey healed enough to leave “the life.”
The prostitution court, with specially trained judges, prosecutors and other court personnel, and the inclusion of experienced service providers, may represent the only hope that many of Casey’s sisters have to lead a life worth living.
Law-abiding citizens rightly want the scourge stopped; women living through the on-going trauma that is prostitution want to have real choices and change. However, without adequate housing, effective substance abuse treatment, trauma-focused mental health counseling, life skills training and appropriate health, education and employment resources, the women may continue to believe the lie that they must “service” the men who troll for illicit sex in some of Baltimore’s most desperate neighborhoods.
Prostituted children (and others caught up in human trafficking) must be rescued and correctly labeled “victims” in this deadly game; women involved in prostitution deserve the chance to prove they can rise above their circumstances.
From a practical standpoint, re-incarceration of such individuals is expensive, far more so than help for them would be. The total costs haven’t been calculated, but with an estimated $3,500 cost for each arrest and brief incarceration, three avoided arrests a year will save more than $10,000 per person for taxpayers. Success in diverting these nonviolent offenders to treatment and care would also lessen the burden on all city law enforcement systems.
We must rise to the occasion by supporting a prostitution court. It will help to ensure Baltimore’s most vulnerable citizens are given the best help our justice system has available and that communities can thrive without the presence of prostitution.
Sidney Ford is director and founder of You Are Never Alone, Maryland’s first organization for women and children exploited through prostitution and human trafficking. She may be reached at yanainc@earthlink.net.
Couple accused of human trafficking By Edward Chadwick A HUNGARIAN man and his girlfriend have appeared in court charged with human trafficking and forcing a teenager to work as a prostitute.
Imre Orsos, aged 48, of Chorley Old Road, Bolton, and Monika Pandur, aged 19, of Raphael Street, Halliwell, appeared at Bolton Magistrates' Court yesterday.
The charges relate to a woman, aged 19, who is alleged to have been brought into the country last month by the two.
They are also charged with causing prostitution for financial gain. They were remanded in to custody and will return to the court on August 7.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Police must treat prostitutes as victims rather than criminals and crack down instead on clients and human traffickers who force women and children to sell their bodies, activists said on Wednesday.
Hundreds of thousands of women and girls in India are kidnapped, sold, coerced or trafficked for sex in a highly organised, yet illicit trade which is the world's third most lucrative after arms and drugs.
But activists say that while the children and young women are often trapped in slave-like situations, unable to free themselves from their pimps and brothel owners, police treat them as criminals while the real perpetrators get away.
"Hundreds of thousands of victims are invisible and are kept in captivity and have no access to any justice system whatsoever," said Ruchira Gupta, director of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, a local charity working against human trafficking.
"On the other hand, the perpetrators of this crime -- the profiteers and buyers that constitute the demand for human trafficking -- are visible and work with impunity." In India, trafficking and profiting by selling a person for sex is illegal, but paying for sex with a prostitute is not unless she is under 18-years-old.
Almost 6,000 cases of trafficking were registered in 2005, but activists say the real number is much higher and on the rise.
Activists say that women are easy targets for police to arrest and round up in brothel raids and on street corners and police rarely investigate or arrest brothel owners or pimps. Experts, speaking at the launch of a handbook to help police better enforce human trafficking laws, said police needed to understand the issue better.
"The real problem is not the absence of a legal infrastructure, but the importance of those that are empowered to impose the law to know what to do," said Gary Lewis, South Asia representative of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. According to the International Labour Organisation, 2.45 million people worldwide are exploited and treated like slaves every year, and another 1.2 million people are trafficked. Lewis said that, according to some estimates, the global trade in human trafficking generated around $32 billion a year.
Sex-trafficked girls and women from south Asia have high prevalence of HIV infection Nearly 40 percent of repatriated Nepalese sex-trafficked girls and women tested were positive for HIV infection, with girls trafficked before age 15 having higher rates of infection, according to a study in the August 1 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on violence and human rights.
“Trafficking across or within national borders for purposes of sexual exploitation including forced prostitution, i.e., sex trafficking, is recognized as a major gender-based human rights violation with significant individual and public health consequences and is increasingly discussed as a potentially critical mechanism in the spread of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) across developing nations,” the authors write.
There are an estimated 150,000 girls and women trafficked each year within and across the countries of South Asia, with approximately 5,000 to 7,000 Nepalese girls and women trafficked to India’s commercial sex industry each year, according to background information in the article. Data on HIV prevalence among survivors of sex trafficking and roles of trafficking-related exposures in HIV infection have been limited.
Jay G. Silverman, Ph.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, and colleagues examined the prevalence and risk factors for HIV infection among 287 repatriated Nepalese girls and women sex trafficked to brothels in India. Medical and case records were reviewed of the girls and women, who received rehabilitative services between January 1997 and December 2005.
The researchers found that among the 287 girls and women, 38.0 percent tested positive for HIV. Among those with complete documentation of trafficking experiences (n = 225), median (midpoint) age at time of trafficking was 17.0 years, with 33 girls (14.7 percent) trafficked prior to age 15 years. Compared with those trafficked at 18 years or older, girls trafficked prior to age 15 years had an increased risk for HIV, with 20 of 33 (60.6 percent) infected among this youngest age group.
Additional factors associated with being HIV positive included being trafficked to Mumbai (India’s second largest city) and longer duration of forced prostitution (indicating increased risk per additional month in a brothel). Additional analyses indicated that girls trafficked prior to age 15 years had five times the increased odds of having been detained in multiple brothels and more likely to be in brothels for a duration of 1 year or more vs. those trafficked at age 18 years or older.
The authors write, “Findings of the present study emphasize the critical need to strengthen efforts to prevent sex trafficking and to intervene to protect trafficking survivors so as to shield young girls and women, both from this form of sexual violence and from the high risk of HIV infection. Currently, relatively few such efforts exist, and organizations that do engage in this work often lack adequate political or financial support. Furthermore, the high rates of HIV documented herein support concerns that sex trafficking may be a significant factor in the expansion of the South Asian HIV epidemic, both within higher-prevalence nations such as India and also from such nations to their lower-prevalence neighbors (e.g., Nepal). Moreover, the current demonstration of the very young age of many of those trafficked and sexually exploited, and the further harm to these young lives through high rates of HIV infection, requires attention from public health researchers and strategists to better understand and reduce the demand for sexual services from prostituted girls and women.”
### (JAMA. 20017;298(5):536-542. Available pre-embargo to the media at www.jamamedia.org) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. For More Information: Contact the JAMA/Archives Media Relations Department at 312-464-JAMA or email: mediarelations@jama-archives.org.
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) - A man who had sex with a 13-year-old girl who had been forced into prostitution has been sentenced to serve up to 15 years in prison.
District Judge Nancy Guthrie in Jackson yesterday (Friday) sentenced 37-year-old Juan Luna to serve between nine to 15 years in prison.
Luna admitted this spring to having sex with the girl five times in March 2004.
A federal judge last month sentenced three other men who admitted forcing the girl to work as a prostitute to serve prison sentences ranging up to eight years.
Prosecutor Brian Hultman asked Judge Guthrie to hand Luna a lengthy prison sentence. He argued that Luna's crimes were at least as bad as the crimes of the men who pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of a child in the case.
The girl has testified that the men who brought her into the country from Mexico told her that she needed to repay a debt for her transportation. She said she never received money for the sex acts she performed in March and April 2004.
A mother was sentenced to 15 years in prison Thursday after she admitted she sold her teenage daughters as prostitutes.
The woman's lawyer told the judge her family needed money for food, but prosecutors said she used the money to feed her addiction to crack cocaine.
The name of the mother is being withheld because it could identify her daughters and The Associated Press does not generally identify alleged victims of sex crimes.
The girls, who were 15 and 17 when their mother was arrested in January, are in the custody of the Department of Social Services and receiving intense counseling, authorities said.
The father of the teens faces charges because authorities said he knew what the mother was doing. Three men also are awaiting trial for buying sex from the teens, prosecutors said.
Before being sentenced, the mother apologized to her daughters, who were not in the courtroom. "I'd like to tell my girls I'm sorry and I love them," she said.
But Circuit Judge Kenneth Goode said he wasn't swayed by her remorse.
"I've known many families who've gone through huge financial straits," Goode said. "And they didn't resort to what you did."
CONCERNS: Support groups for prostitutes fear the law may lead to violence toward sex workers and greater reliance on pimps, but backers say it will hurt traffickers
AFP, OSLO Thursday, Jul 19, 2007, Page 6
Prostitues from Eastern Europe work on a street in central Oslo on March 30. Norway is preparing to criminalize the purchase of sex. PHOTO: AFP Norway is preparing to criminalize the purchase of sex -- though not the sale of it -- a move that is proving highly controversial among prostitute support groups, who argue that the policy will make sex workers more vulnerable.
Men who buy sex could face up to six months in jail, pay a fine or face both, under proposed legislation currently under consultation with relevant interest groups.
The law will ban paying for sexual services, but not selling them. Procuring, or pimping, and human trafficking are already illegal.
The bill, expected to be sent to parliament before the middle of next year, is certain to be adopted as all three parties in the governing coalition have said they will back it.
"We want to send a clear message to men that buying sex is unacceptable. Men who do it are taking part in an international crime involving human beings who are trafficked for sex," Norwegian Justice Minister Knut Storberget said.
"Criminalizing buying sex will make it more difficult for traffickers to organize themselves," he said, because they won't be able to find clients on the street, since the latter will be afraid of getting caught.
Prostitutes' support groups say the law will be ineffective.
"The law will end street prostitution but it won't stop women from working indoors or from going abroad" to work as prostitutes, said Liv Jessen, director of the Pro Center, an Oslo-based support group for prostitutes.
It is estimated that about 40 percent of deals between prostitutes and customers in Norway are made on the street, with the rest occurring indoors, for instance in hotels or at massage parlors.
Among prostitutes working on the street, about 80 percent come from countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Nigeria, via trafficking. The rest are Norwegians who tend to be drug abusers.
In recent years, street prostitution in central Oslo has become more visible, prompting calls for a ban. But critics say the law will make sex workers more vulnerable.
"The girls will have to rely more on pimps than before to get clients," said Janni Wintherbauer, the leader of the Organization for the Interests of Prostitutes and a sex worker herself. "The pimps will organize everything: the flat where they live, the choice of clients and how much money they get."
"In the street, the girls can choose who they go with. If they don't like the look of a client, they can say no. In an apartment, they can't," Wintherbauer said.
She fears there will be more rapes and attacks on prostitutes.
"The client will think: `I've already broken the law, I've got nothing to lose.' And in an apartment, a girl will be alone" where no one will be able to help her, she said.
The planned law is modeled on legislation passed in 1999 in Sweden. There, men who buy sex face six months in jail or a fine, set in proportion to their income.
No one has yet gone to prison for the offense, but one person was fined, police said.
ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian police intercepted a freight truck carrying 62 people, including babies and children, in a suspected case of mass human trafficking, the agency in charge of fighting such crimes said on Wednesday.
The 62, who include men, women, boys and girls, are all from the same community in southeastern Cross River state and they say they were on their way to various locations in southwestern Ogun and Ondo states to join relatives or find work.
"We are investigating because we think it is possible that human traffickers recruited these people to give them out as farm hands, house helps or for brothels," said Funke Abiodun, head of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP) in Edo state, where the truck was stopped.
Human trafficking is a major problem in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation where the majority live on less than $1 (49 pence) per day, and victims are often made to swear oaths at traditional shrines, discouraging them from denouncing the traffickers.
Abiodun said police intercepted the truck on Sunday and detained the 62 people for two days in cells where they complained of ill treatment and refused food or water in protest.
She said NAPTIP had taken over the case on Tuesday and the 62 had initially been hostile to the agency's staff, but the women and girls were now in a NAPTIP shelter while the men and boys were in a holding centre and all were eating and drinking.
Some Nigerian victims of human trafficking are transferred within the country, but many are taken abroad where they work as domestic staff or prostitutes. Victims are often saddled with huge "debts" towards their traffickers and are unable to retain any earnings for several years.
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.
Sky News Reporter Updated: 09:11, Wednesday July 11, 2007
A new drive has been launched to decriminalise the sex trade by the English Collective Of Prostitutes.
A working girl in Ipswich
But would such a move be supported by the working girls of a town shaken by the murders of five prostitutes?
After seven months, the shadows of last winter's killings have still not lifted from Ipswich.
Fewer women are prepared to work the streets of the red light district, fearing for their safety.
Paige has no choice. She's an alcoholic, uses crack cocaine and has debts to repay.
"I owe quite a lot of money, so that's why I do what I'm doing now," she says.
But she says business has been tough since the zero-tolerance policy to kerb-crawling was introduced in the town in March.
At least 64 men have been arrested already.
The English Collective Of Prostitutes, which is calling for the sex trade to be decriminalised, says the move would help provide safe places for the women to see clients.
Maxine agrees. She worked alongside the murdered women, scored drugs with them and even shared squats. Prostitution is dangerous work
"I think it would probably be better if they did legalise it. A lot of problems would be sorted. Girls would be safer and also the clients wouldn't have to worry," she explained.
Drug rehabilitation projects like ICENI have been helping ther women kick their habit and get off the streets.
But the scheme's director is concerned that decriminalising prostitution is too simplistic an approach.
"I do not believe you can eradicate it, " said Brian Tobin. "I think you need to manage it more efficiently."
ICENI is attempting to help Lou to come off heroin and crack.
Since her friends were killed she's reduced the time she spends working the streets.
It used to be every night, now she comes out three or four times a week.
But she believes that while legalisation might keep some girls safer, those who want to avoid the system would be at even greater risk.
"It could be more dangerous, it's going to send some girls further underground," she said.
The murders have made Maxine rethink her life. She rarely works as a prostitute these days, but many others remain trapped in a world of selling sex to fund a habit.
PHOENIX -- Phoenix police made two arrests in a monthslong investigation of a suspected child prostitution operation that involved at least three teenage girls, one of whom the main suspect branded, authorities said Thursday.
Vice detectives served a search warrant late Wednesday, Sgt. Joel Tranter said, a day after they arrested Shawn Lamar Bailey, 40, and Charmaine Lee, 22.
Bailey was booked on two counts of child prostitution, six other prostitution-related charges and a charge of conducting a criminal enterprise. He also faces one count of aggravated assault for allegedly branding one of the three teens he was actively prostituting, Tranter said.
Lee was booked on one count each of child prostitution, pandering and conducting a criminal enterprise.
The girls involved in the case range in age from 14 to 17, Tranter said. Two adult women were also being prostituted by Bailey, Tranter said.
MINNEAPOLIS A 19-year-old woman faces federal charges of recruiting minors for prostitution, after some teenage girls told investigators she was actively recruiting clients for a sex ring she allegedly operated out of a Burnsville motel where she worked.
Investigators believe Justine Alex Reisdorf of Eagan advertised in the "erotic services" section of the Web site Craigslist.org, and more recently on the "Live Links" telephone chat line, according to a statement by FBI agent Lisa Nielsen.
Eagan Police Detective Kurt Bratulich started the investigation in December after a girl who allegedly worked for Reisdorf confided in him.
"I work at one of the schools, so the victim felt pretty comfortable in talking to me about what was going on," Bratulich said Wednesday. "It kind of snowballed on the state level, and it turned into a federal investigation once we found that the Internet was used and that the victims were underage."
Bratulich said the FBI is still investigating and investigators and prosecutors met with the defense attorney Wednesday to discuss the case. He declined to say more.
Reisdorf's attorney, assistant federal defender Katherine Menendez, declined to comment.
Reisdorf, the mother of a 14-month-old girl, was charged June 14 in federal court with recruiting minors for a prostitution ring from November 2006 until June.
According to court documents and statements from Nielsen, Bratulich learned Reisdorf was recruiting high school girls to work for her as prostitutes at a town house she rented in Burnsville. He found advertisements on Craigslist that read: "Hi Fellas. it's the party girls ... 200 roses for 2 hours for one of us ... 375 roses for 2 hours for 3 of us ... Kandy, Deja and Carmen." He learned "Deja" was Reisdorf's alias and "roses" was code for dollars.
Authorities searched the Burnsville residence in December, but Reisdorf was in the process of moving and few items were left, records show.
Nielsen and Bratulich interviewed an underage girl in February who said Reisdorf had run a brothel in the Burnsville town house and advertised the services of adult and minor prostitutes on Craigslist.
Another underage female admitted working for Reisdorf, Nielsen said. The girl also said Reisdorf put ads on Craigslist that contained pictures showing parts of her body.
In April, investigators traced some erotic postings on Craigslist to "Deja A. McDone." They connected phone numbers in the ads to Reisdorf.
Last month, another juvenile told Bratulich that Reisdorf was "actively recruiting minor children to engage in acts of prostitution," Nielsen said. The investigation indicated Reisdorf used her job at a Burnsville motel "to obtain hotel rooms for purposes of prostitution," she said.
Nielsen also said Reisdorf no longer exclusively advertises on Craigslist but solicits prostitution on a telephone chat line known as "Live Links."
The worldwide sex trafficking trade has inevitably come to Thailand and is being practiced by some of the foreign sex workers who ply their trade on the streets of Pattaya. The Thai Authorities are keen to suppress this abhorrent trade and when the Child, Youth and Female Crime Suppression Authority learnt of a Uzbeki sex trafficking ring operating in Pattaya, they obtained the necessary arrest warrants and swooped on the offenders on July 10th.
The ringleaders, identified as Miss Lola Mamadova (26) and Mrs. Mayram Yakubova, were operating as mamasans from Niran Condominium and were caught red-handed at 11.30 am by a police team led by Pol.Lt.Col. Kittiphob Anuwongworawet of the Child, Youth and Female Crime Suppression Authority, supported by Pol.Capt. Rojsak Naiphongsri. Both women were charged with providing illegal sexual services and abusing fellow female compatriots by forcing them to sell sex, mostly against their wills.
When the police conducted a more extensive search of two adjacent rooms in the condominium, they also discovered four other Uzbek women, the Misses Nigora Hasanova (19), Zuhra Yusupova (28), Mukadam Olimova (36) and Zarina Melieva (30), who they suspected of being sexual co-workers. The police also found incriminating books full of records and lists of sex customers. The police impounded them as evidence and arrested the whole gang, who will undergo further investigation.
The police first learnt of the presence of the Uzbek sex trafficking ring from two informants, a Samaritan and a Uzbek girl, Miss Mohichehra Shodiyarova (20), on July 5th. These two reported to Pol.Maj.Gen. Wimol Pao-In, a superintendent of the Child, Youth and Female Crime Suppression Authority, that two Uzbek mamasans, Miss Lola and Mrs. Mayram, were running the sex-ring from Niran Grand Condo, and that they abused the women in their control and forced them to sell sex to foreigners in Pattaya. Miss Mohichehra also asked the police to help the other Uzbek girls who are in the same boat as herself.
Miss Mohichehra declared that she had been persuaded by the procurers, Miss Lola and Mrs. Mayram, to come to Pattaya to sell sexual services and that she, and others in similar circumstances, had been advanced the travelling fare of 200,000 Baht. When she arrived, Miss Mohichehra was taken to stay at Niran Grand Condo, Central Pattaya, and her passport was kept by the mamasans to prevent her from escaping. She was forced to sell sexual services in the vicinity of the V.C. Hotel, South Pattaya, charging 1,500 Baht per customer, of which she only received 500 Baht, the remaining 1,000 Baht being kept by the mamasans as part repayment of the airfare advance. In the event that she was unable to get any customers, she would be severely beaten and abused. It all became more than she could bear, so she endeavored to escape the mamasans’ clutches and did so, also enlisting the aid of a Samaritan to report the matter to the police.
Pol.Lt.Col. Kittiphob said that there were many Uzbek women who were caught in the trap of poverty; many of whom were being exploited by the likes of the two mamasans or agencies.
In such cases, the unfortunate victims were usually fed stories to the effect that they could escape the poverty trap at home by working in such venues as Pattaya, Dubai and Bahrain, where the pickings are high. Many of them enter these venues on tourist visas, being passed off as holidaymakers. However, when they arrive, these poor unfortunates learn to their cost that they have often been brought to such places under false pretences and they are effectively imprisoned until they have repaid their airfare loans, usually by enforced prostitution, despite often having been told they would be employed in the hospitality trade.
Confidential informants working inside a suspected house of prostitution in the heart of Bradenton aroused enough suspicion of human trafficking to bring federal agents into the investigation.
Court records show informants told Bradenton Police and federal authorities of Hispanic prostitutes brought in from other countries illegally, living out of suitcases, being rotated from house to house, selling themselves for sex.
Police said they believe one of those houses operated in downtown Bradenton, in the 700 block of Fourth Avenue West, behind the U.S. Post Office.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were the first to receive complaints about teen prostitutes brought illegally into the county selling sex in the house, according to court records.
Complaints that juveniles were involved also brought the FBI in to investigate possible human trafficking in the house, according to Bradenton Police Sgt. Cris Truluck.
During a recent raid of the home, none of prostitutes was found to be under the age of 18. But evidence did show an active house of prostitution, and the need for further investigation into possible human trafficking.
The raid
A raid of the home on June 28 showed enough evidence to arrest the man authorities said they believe ran the prostitution house.
Police charged Gumaro Valencia-Mariche on the day of the raid with prostitution and setting up a main place for prostitution. He is being held in the Manatee County jail on $1,120 bond.
Also, U.S. immigration authorities deported three people found in the home during the raid, including two female prostitutes, Truluck said.
All of the prostitutes in the home told police and the FBI they had been paid, and none was found to be under the age of 18, thus squashing the possibility of making a human trafficking case, Truluck said.
But based on the testimony of informants working inside the house, authorities said they may have just scratched the surface of a wider prostitution ring in Manatee, as well as across Florida.
"This thing is huge and organized. There are locations in Sarasota, Manatee, Fort Myers and Orlando," one employee informant in the Bradenton house told investigators.
And during the raid, evidence showed signs that tales told by informants of prostitutes being shuffled from house to house to be true, according to court records.
"There is evidence of people being brought in from other countries and being rotated around different locations," said Truluck. "This is still very much an open investigation."
The house
On Dec. 15, 2006, Truluck first met with an agent with U.S. immigration about the house on Fourth Avenue West, according to court records.
Immigration authorities were the first to receive complaints about activity at the home.
"The complaint was that this location was being used for prostitution and possibly juvenile prostitutes that were illegal in the country," Truluck stated in an affidavit.
After that initial meeting, citizens' complaints began to come in on the house, mirroring the initial complaint to immigration.
By February, police had the house under surveillance. One person pulled over on a traffic violation leaving the house admitted to paying for sex there.
Other surveillance showed dozens of men entering the home for short periods of time, then leaving.
By March, a man working in the house had been located and agreed to become an informant, according to the affidavit.
He told police men would pay him and would in turn receive a token or playing card. The men would then give the token or playing card to the prostitute.
That prostitute would then get paid by giving the card or token back to the informant at the end of the night, the affidavit said.
Another informant would sign on and tell similar tales of life in the house.
"The prostitutes told us they were paid. But it is very little money, which creates a vicious cycle where they have nowhere else to go," said Truluck.
On June 20, Bradenton police received a call from an anonymous person saying he had gone to the house to get a prostitute and had a gun pulled on him, according to the affidavit.
Truluck asked to enter the home after responding to the call. Inside he saw dozens of condoms, playing cards and "small suitcases."
"I also noticed there were small suitcases with a small amount of women's clothes inside them," Truluck wrote in his affidavit. "This was also consistent with information given that the girls working in this house are rotated every one to two weeks."
It was also enough probable cause to get a judge to sign off on the search warrant affidavit for the raid.
"With this information it is believed that a house of prostitution is in operation at this location. Both confidential informants in this case have been proven to give reliable information," Truluck stated in his affidavit.
- Herald Staff Writer Natalie Neysa Alund contributed to this report.
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