Haiti authorities right to protect vulnerable children from exploitation

An Idaho religious group’s desire to help children is understandable but does not excuse it for trying to take several dozen Haitian children across the border. Following Haiti’s rules makes it less likely that a parent’s desperation is preyed upon and more likely that some of the children may be reunited with relatives.

AN earthquake last month plunged Haiti into crisis. Even deeper poverty and heartbreaking reports of lost and abandoned children have followed. A desire to help Haiti’s children is understandable but does not excuse an Idaho religious group accused of trying to take several dozen Haitian children across the border.

Haitian authorities have in custody a group of Baptists who describe a “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” to save abandoned, traumatized children.

Their plan to take 33 Haitian kids, ranging in age from 2 months to 12 years, to a beach resort in the Dominican Republic was thwarted when authorities stopped them at the border for not having proper paperwork. The group was sent back to Port-au-Prince; the children were placed in an orphanage.

Representatives for the Baptists, affiliated with the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, argue that the group had good intentions. Perhaps, but their actions were inarguably wrong.

Haiti’s overwhelmed government had halted adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake, allowing the tiny nation to concentrate on rescue and relief efforts.

Authorities are also concerned that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable to being seized and sold. Sex trafficking is rampant in Haiti. The country is right to take steps to protect its children, including demanding assistance be tempered with compliance with Haitian law.

An Associated Press report quoted a Haitian parent who said some in Haiti have given their children to foreign rescuers in the hopes of a better life.

But a different story was told at the orphanage where the children taken from the Baptist group are now housed. On the facility’s Web site Sunday, one of the children, an 8-year-old girl, told workers she was not an orphan and said she believed that her mother had arranged a short vacation for her.

Following Haiti’s rules makes it less likely that a parent’s desperation is preyed upon and more likely that some of the lost or abandoned children may be reunited with relatives.

The group of Baptists from Idaho could face criminal charges of child trafficking and kidnapping. But unless authorities uncover some malevolent twist to the their plan, they should be released.

Let this case resolve itself quickly and without charges. It is unlikely that with Haiti’s court system in shambles, the government truly wants to wage a high-profile prosecution fraught with diplomatic and cultural tensions.

source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/editorials/2010953790_edit02haiti.html?prmid=op_ed

“ABDUCTED GIRL”, an American sex slave

First trailers now online for Ryan’s new film “ABDUCTED GIRL: AN AMERICAN SEX SLAVE”

Three teaser trailers have been released for the upcoming film “ABDUCTED GIRL: AN AMERICAN SEX SLAVE” set to hit theatres sometime in 2010 for a limited run.

Director Shane Ryan was attacked by the media a few weeks ago when he announced production, and was accused of making a Jaycee Dugard porn film. “I think an 8 year can clearly see it’s not a porn movie”, says Ryan, “nor are we making Jaycee Dugard’s actual story and I’m very sorry she heard about it that way” (Lindsay Lohan announced just days later that she would like to play Jaycee in a film).

In March of 2009 (months before Jaycee’s discovery) Ryan said that he would be making a sex trafficking film and admitted after hearing about Jaycee and her 18 years of living in captivity that he was merely inspired, like any story teller, filmmaker or media, would be. He wanted to tell a similar situation. Ryan often tackles sexual subject matters in his films, whether it’s rape, incest or pedophilia because “it scares the hell of out me and I don’t understand why it happens. Sex slavery being the creepiest thing yet.” His last film “WARNINGgirl victim!!! PEDOPHILE RELEASED”, about the girl victim of an accused pedophile and her 6 year wait for him to be released from prison, hit DVD last December.

Trailer : http://vimeo.com/7814773

Source : Alter Ego Cinema

Slave Labor on Hawaii’s Second Largest Farm

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If you ate produce from Hawaii, especially Asian vegetables and melons, between 2003 and 2005, chances are you were eating fruits and veggies grown by slaves. That’s because the owners of the second-largest fruit and vegetable farm in all of Hawaii, Aloun Farms, enslaved 44 Thai nationals during that time. The workers were all promised lucrative jobs in the U.S., but once they arrived in Hawaii, the promises were broken and the slavery began.

The Aloun Farms case is in many ways a typical human trafficking case. Company president Alec Souphone Sou and his brother Mike Mankone Sou made a deal with Thai labor recruiters to trick workers into taking jobs on the farm. The recruiters charged each of the workers $16,000 to bring them to the U.S. and find them work at Aloun Farms. Once in Hawaii, the workers were told they must pay off this debt before receiving a paycheck. Because of this falsely inflated debt, some workers never saw a penny from their labors at Aloun. They were told they could not leave the compound where they were housed or speak to people outside their group. Several workers were threatened with deportation if they were “disobedient.”

Fortunately, Aloun Farms and their scheme were eventually busted and the brothers arrested. This week, they pled guilty to forced labor charges. They would have been sentenced to 15 years in prison each, but they agreed to help authorities find the Thai recruiters they worked with, the ones who deceived 44 Thai workers about the reality of a job on Aloun Farms. Their new sentence, taking the plea bargain into account, is still forthcoming.

U.S. Ignores Cuba’s Request for Help Fighting Trafficking to America

Just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, Cuba is practically a next door neighbor to the United States. But America has thus far been behaving in a very un-neighborly way by refusing to help them with the significant problem of human trafficking between Cuba and the U.S., mostly of Cubans to America. I know we’ve had our differences with Cuba in the past (<cough> Bay of Pigs <cough>), but rejecting an olive branch attempt to fight slavery? Now that’s more than unfriendly.

Last week, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez stated that he wants to negotiate an agreement with the United States to address the mutual problem of Cuban citizens being both smuggled and trafficked into the U.S. While the issues of smuggling and trafficking Cubans into America are distinct, they overlap greatly.

Some Cubans choose to migrate from Cuba to the U.S. without proper documentation, and pay a smuggler to bring them into the U.S. illegally. A smuggler’s relationship with the people he crosses borders with ends after they are in a new country. While migrants often suffer terrible conditions and may even die during smuggling, it is different issue from human trafficking. A trafficker continues to exploit the labor of the person or people he brings across a border, whether its in prostitution, domestic servitude, agriculture, or any other industry.

Sometimes, people voluntarily choose to be smuggled. But once their freedom and ability to leave their situation is taken, they become trafficked —  a modern-day slave. And no one chooses to be a slave.

Child rescue bid raises tough questions in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The arrest of 10 Americans for trying to take children out of Haiti has raised an uncomfortable question in this brutally poor and earthquake-devastated country: could some children be better off abroad under the grim circumstances?

The Baptists from Idaho were waiting Monday to hear if they will be tried on child trafficking charges for attempting to take 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic without official authorization.

Child welfare groups expressed outrage over Friday’s attempt, saying some of the children had parents who survived the Jan. 12 earthquake. Prime Minister Max Bellerive denounced the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.

But the reality is that some struggling Haitian parents see adoption as a last-ditch hope for their children.

“My parents died in the earthquake. My husband has gone. Giving up one of my kids would at least give them a chance,” Saintanne Petit-Frere, 40, a mother of six living outside in a tent camp near the airport said Sunday. “My only fear is that they would forget me, but that wouldn’t affect my decision.”

The Baptists’ “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatized children. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic. The 33 kids ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years.

They were stopped at the border for not having proper paperwork and taken back to Port-au-Prince, where the children were taken to a temporary children’s home.

Haiti’s justice secretary, Amarick Louis, told The Associated Press that a commission would meet Monday to determine if the group would go before a judge. The group was being held at a building where government ministers are giving regular briefings – a maze of dingy concrete rooms but not traditional cells. Their living conditions were unclear.

Foreigners adopting children from the developing world have grabbed headlines recently – Madonna tried to adopt a girl from Malawi amid criticism from locals, while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a burgeoning multicultural brood.

But in Haiti, a long tradition of foreign military intervention coupled with the earthquake that destroyed much of the capital and plunged it even deeper into poverty, have made this issue even more emotionally charged.

“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I’ve been thinking how I will choose which one I may give.”

Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold. Sex trafficking has been rampant in Haiti.

Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, children could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

“For UNICEF, what is important is that for children separated from their parents, we do everything possible to have their families traced and to reunite them,” said Kent Page, a spokesman for the group in Haiti. “They have to be protected from traffickers or people who wish to exploit these children.”

He said it was possible the Americans arrested may have had “good intentions but misguided execution.”

The Idaho church group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, told the AP from detention that the group was “just trying to do the right thing” amid the chaos. She conceded she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children.

The children were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived “very hungry, very thirsty.” A 2- to 3-month-old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. Workers were searching for their families or close relatives.

“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” Willeit said.

As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is in a difficult spot – it needs aid, but deeply resents foreign meddling. Many have mixed feelings toward Christian groups that funnel hundreds of millions into missions in Haiti.

Christian missionaries alone run or support an estimated 2,000 primary schools attended by some 600,000 students – a third of Haiti’s school-aged population, according to government figures. Church groups also run vital hospitals, orphanages and food-distribution sites.

“There are many who come here with religious ideas that belong more in the time of the inquisition,” said Max Beauvoir, head of Haiti’s Voodoo Priest’s Association, which represents thousands of priests and priestesses. “These types of people believe they need to save our souls and our bodies from ourselves. We need compassion, not proselytizing now, and we need aid – not just aid going to people of the Christian faith.”

Two-thirds of Haiti’s 9 million are said to practice Voodoo, a melange of beliefs combining animism from west Africa and Catholicism.

Many religious groups run legitimate adoption agencies and orphanages in Haiti.

The arrested Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. They are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America’s largest Protestant denomination and has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide.

The Idaho churches had elaborate plans before the earthquake to shelter up to 200 Haitian and Dominican boys and girls in the Magante beach resort, complete with a school and chapel as well as villas and a seaside cafe catering to adoptive U.S. parents.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020100505_pf.html

Traffickers Targeting Haiti’s Children, Human Organs, PM Says

Prime Minister of Haiti Confirms Trafficking in Children and Human Organs

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive of Haiti has confirmed the many reports that international profiteers have taken advantage of the devastating 7.0 earthquake that occurred on January 12 to traffic in orphaned children and in the organs of dead Haitians. One entity that has been accused is the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) who set up a clandestine tent field hospital in a soccer field in Port-au-Prince soon after the earthquake. The IDF has a confirmed record of exracting the kidneys, livers, hearts , corneas and other transplantable organs and tissues from Palestinians in the Holy Land.

The Prime Minister of Haiti confirmed the trafficking of children and human organs in the following taped interview with journalist Christiane Amanpour: .

Whereas most of the trafficked Haitian children end up being adopted by well intentioned families in the USA, some unfortunately are sexually exploitated and a few have their organs extracted, mostly kidneys, to transplant to critically ill children of wealthy parents in the USA, Israel, Canada and other western countries. The trafficking of children for sex and for their organs is also presently occuring in other third world countries. Mexican children are most vulnerable because Mexico shares a border with a wealthy neighbor to the north. La Voz de Aztlan reported on the abduction of Mexican children by the USA “Organ Mafia” that operates along the US/Mexico border in clandestine clinics for the purpose of transplanting Mexican baby organs to wealthy but sick American children.

The report title, “THE CORRUPTIVE INFLUENCE OF THE DOLLAR: The Shameful Trade in Mexican Baby Organs!” is published at http://www.aztlan.net/organs.htm
Among the worst of the “Organ Mafias” are those belonging to Zionist Israel and to certain Jewish cults. Last year the FBI arrested 6 rabbis for trafficking in human organs between New York, New Jersey and Zionist Israel. The “Rabbi Mafia” made tens of millions in human organs and laundered the money through phoney Jewish charities and synagogues. Arrested were Rabbi Mordchai Fish, Rabbi Albert Schwartz, Rabbi Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, Rabbi Eliahu Ben Haim, Rabbi Saul Kassin, and Rabbi Edmund Nahum. Thirty eight corrupt politicians controlled by the criminal Jewish rabbis were also arrested.

Reports on the hideous move first surfaced in August when an article in the Swedish popular tabloid Aftonbladet quoted Palestinians as revealing that Israel returned their relatives’ bodies with their chests sewn up, which indicated the organ theft.

An Israeli Knesset member says there is evidence showing that deceased Palestinians were stripped bare of their vital organs while in police custody in Tel Aviv.

The story brings to light the fact that Israel has brought some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the occupied entity over the past two years in order to harvest their organs. It cites a Ukrainian man’s fruitless search for 15 children who had been adopted in Israel. The children had clearly been taken by Israeli medical centers, where they were used for ’spare parts’.

Mr. Netanyahu called on the Swedish government to condemn the article, published in the Stockholm daily Aftonbladet, which claimed that Israeli soldiers were involved in trafficking the organs of some Palestinians they had killed.

The Swedish author Donald Bostrom of the article accusing the Israeli Army of harvesting organs from wounded or killed Palestinians says he has received several death threats.

source: http://www.aztlan.net/haiti_pm_confirms_trafficking_in_organs.htm

Lindsay Lohan Trafficking Documentary Teaser Leaked, Activists Cringe

Merely a month after Lindsay Lohan spent a life-changing three hours with some human trafficking survivors in India, a teaser for the documentary she filmed while there has leaked. The good news is that, based on the teaser, Lohan’s documentary looks more sophisticated and enjoyable than the straight-to-video 2004 flop Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. The bad news is that getting one of those babies to replace Lohan for commentary might have been a good move for the BBC. (The teaser is after the jump.

Lohan’s trip to India to film this documentary was exceeding arduous, and included such physically and spiritually challenging activities as wearing a traditional bindi, showering small children with gifts, and traveling with her friend and personal stylist. After all, that Indian heat and humidity can wreak havoc on your hair, whether you’re recovering from a life of slavery or trying to fight your image as a substanceless, pantieless bimbo.

But despite the necessary fashion pit stops, Lohan did claim to have “saved” 40 children on the first day of her visit, marking a new world record in either philanthropy or narcissism.

From the leaked clip, it’s obvious that Lohan has done extensive research into human trafficking, and offers unique and substantive insights, like, “… the parents aren’t necessarily in the wrong, the children are obviously not in the wrong.” Then she pauses, either for dramatic affect or to answer the question she’s just asked herself. “The traffickers are the ones in the wrong because they know what they’re doing,” she concludes triumphantly. What an insight, Lindsay! Based on that statement, it sounds like you’ve done years of research into this issue, and not just spent a few hours at one shelter playing dress-up. But Lohan doesn’t stop there. She also interviews actual human traffickers, asking hard-hitting questions like whether or not the children they sell for sex are attractive children. Ouch! You show those criminals who’s boss.

Freedom for the Weekend: Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking

Well, it’s Friday afternoon, and that means the weekend is almost here!  W00t! Perhaps you’re reading this blog because you’re bored at work or school and you’re thinking about what you want to do this weekend. How about spending part of your weekend fighting slavery? Each week I’ll profile a different anti-trafficking nonprofit who you can connect with to help free slaves and prevent slavery around the world. So, spend a couple hours this weekend getting to know this nonprofit through their website, and then get involved!

This Week’s Profile: Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking (FCAHT)

The Bottom Line: FCAHT works to improve and provide outreach and services to victims of human trafficking throughout the state of Florida, developing support programs, networking, coalition building, training, service delivery and referrals to victims in need.

What They Do: They provide training and information about how to better find trafficking victims and arrest traffickers to law enforcement and other audiences across Florida and around the country. They also work with other agencies and organizations in Florida to help prevent human trafficking.

What Can I Do?: They have lots of ideas for how you can get involved with FCAHT as a coalition. You can also get involved with one of their many community partner organizations, all of whom work to end human trafficking in Florida.

Why They Rock: FCAHT has been nationally and internationally recognized for being a well-oiled machine that brings together government agencies, NGOs, law enforcement, social service providers, and other players to provide a holistic approach to combating human trafficking.

So now that you’ve got some basic information on FCAHT, visit their website this weekend and get involved.  And on Monday morning when everyone else is talking about sleeping in and watching TV over the weekend, you can say, “What did I do this weekend?  Oh, just the usual — abolition of slavery.”

Do you have a favorite nonprofit you’d like to see featured here?  If so, let me know!

source: http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/freedom_for_the_weekend_florida_coalition_against_human_trafficking

Japanese “Junior Idols”: Child Porn in Disguise

Lately, Japanese police are playing the incredibly squicky game “Is It Child Pornography.” Here’s how you play: you find a DVD marketed to adult men, and on the cover is a 10-year-old girl in a string bikini, posing with her legs splayed and the most come-hither look in her eye a kid of that age can muster. The DVD consists of videos of pre-pubescent and young teen girls having pillow fights, eating lollipops, and doing other activities in minimal clothing. Yet no one is naked, and no actual sex acts are happening. So is the DVD child pornography? Yes.

DVDs like the one described here are generally referred to as “junior idol” films, and according to Japanese law, they aren’t child pornography because the kids in them are not nude. But the Tokyo police department is still worried, because the age of the children in “junior idol” photos and videos is steadily decreasing. Now, children as young as five are showing up regularly, wearing tiny bathing suits and bending over for the camera. And while only G-rated body parts are actually shown, the way the children are instructed to stand and look into the camera is overtly sexual most of the time.

Child advocates in Japan have called for a need to regulate these publications and create mechanisms to prevent parents from exploiting their kids in this way. Many argue that while a number of the children in “junior idol” videos are too young to realize what’s happening, once they grow up enough to understand that images of them were used without their knowledge in publications meant to arouse, they might be traumatized. “Junior idols” might not be child porn to the law, they argue, but it sure is child porn to the victimized children.

Haitian ‘Orphans’ at risk for trafficking

Before the quake, nearly a quarter of a million children were traded by their parents in exchange for school tuition, while a further third of a million were simply discarded and lived in orphanages. Now, experts fear, they may be sold by the thousands.

As the desperation for food and water in Haiti goes into free fall, experts warn that children may be sold or exchanged for goods. Footage from the BBC illustrates just how the situation is deteriorating. Western governments moved this week to gear up adoptions that were in process prior to January 12. Soon to be adopted children were air-lifted to the Netherlands, France, Canada, and other points north and in Europe.

US Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has stated that Haitian children will be allowed into the US for medical attention under a fast track visa process. The arch-diocese of Miami has proposed a 1960’s-style airlift of orphans, to be connected with the large Haitian community in that city.

But in the rush to move children from Haiti into homes abroad, children’s rights organizations like the Joint Council on International Children’s Services, warn this could lead to a surge in trafficking. Paper work and documents for orphans were lost in the quake, and in a country where children were being sold for school tuition even before the disaster, they warn that documents will be forged or waived and transform expedited visas into yet another venue for the sale of children by their parents.

source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/285978