Police told to see prostitutes as victims, New Delhi, August 1

http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-28771420070801?sp=true

Police told to see prostitutes as victims

By Nita Bhalla

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.

Cyber sex den 'operators' fall POLICE URGING PUBLIC TO

IN DUMAGUETE

BY JUANCHO GALLARDE
http://www.visayandailystar.com/2007/July/21/negor1.htm

The police appealed for public support in fighting the growing problem of trafficking in persons, especially women and children, after the arrest Wednesday of a couple who allegedly operated a cyber sex den in a village in the outskirts of Dumaguete City.

Armed with a search warrant issued by the Regional Trial Court Branch 34, the operatives headed by Dumaguete deputy chief of police Chief Inspector Julius Muñez, swooped down on a residential house in the area, about six kilometers from the city proper. Muñez said at least four minors were made to perform nude in front of the computer camera for a fee from foreigners.

Police confiscated the computer and its accessories, telephone set and other paraphernalia, and assorted clothing of the minors.

Muñez said women and children are the most vulnerable victims of human trafficking, because of depressive conditions in their homes that force them to do anything to earn income.

The raid at the house of the suspects on Wednesday was a result of close surveillance and reports from minor victims who claimed they were made to undress and dance in front of the web camera for "clients" who connect to them via the Internet. Muñez, meanwhile, declined to identify the couple arrested and charged in court, citing a confidentiality clause in Republic Act 9208, or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.

Section 6 of the Act states that the right to privacy of the trafficked person and the accused must be respected, and that at any stage of the investigation, prosecution and trial of an offense under it, the identities and personal circumstances of both the accused and the victim shall not be disclosed to the public, Muñez added.

The media shall also be held liable for publishing or airing information and causing publicity of any case of trafficking in persons. Because of these provisions, Muñez said the police could not freely discuss with the media the alleged cyber sex operations of the couple.

He, however, appealed to the public to help the police by monitoring and reporting unusual activities in their neighborhood, such as the constant presence of young girls, especially if scantily dressed and wearing make-up, at a particular house.

Muñez added that he believes cyber sex operations are syndicated and that those involved in the illegal trade usually move from one place to another, making it difficult for the police to arrest them.

Meanwhile, Commission on Human Rights special investigator Jess Cañete who witnessed the raid, said the four minors are now in the custody of the G-WAVE, but their names are being withheld. Cañete said the girls were told to remove their clothes and show their private parts in front of the camera.*JG

Bradenton house raided; sex ring suspected, Bradenton Sun, July 10, 2007

By ROBERT NAPPER

rnapper@bradenton.com

Bradenton Sun

Posted on Tuesday, July 10, 2007

BRADENTON --

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.