Ten members of an Baptist church have been arrested in Haiti for child trafficking, trying to “save” children who they claim were orphaned:
“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’
(via LGF)
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aziz
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johnpi
Last year, all six Gulf states complained bitterly about a US state department report that accused the majority of Gulf countries of not doing enough to combat human trafficking.
Now, the Kansas City Star has just completed a six-month investigation into the problem of human trafficking inside the United States, which it turns out has thousands – maybe tens of thousands – of human trafficking victims inside its own borders, some of whom come from Muslim-majority countries.
The second part of the series is here.
Interestingly, the well-intentioned focus on international trafficking has left efforts to address trafficking of American born children underfunded and under-serviced.
Ever since passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act nearly a decade ago, foreign-born victims have been the law’s focus. They get extensive counseling, visa assistance and help with food and housing costs as they rebuild their lives.
For victims born in the United States, however, state governments were expected to take care of children prostituted by pimps or family members.
But that rarely happens.
“You talk about frustration,” said Thomas Egan of Catholic Charities in Phoenix. “We found hundreds of prostituted kids and no funding available to help them.”
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johnpi
Global recession fuels child sex boom.
Increasing poverty in children’s countries of origin and smaller budgets for social services are two of the factors heightening children’s vulnerability. Deterioration of living conditions often compels young people to abandon school in order to contribute to the family income, putting them at risk of seeking livelihood options that lead to their being exploited, according to ECPAT International.
and
ECPAT International’s recent report also warned that the number of children and young people trafficked within their own country is increasing. Such trafficking frequently involves movement from rural to urban areas or from one city or town to another without the need for travel documentation.
Muslim country bonus fact: The International Labor Organization says sex tourism contributes as much as 14 percent of the gross domestic product of Indonesia and Malaysia. The real question is would more conservative, religion-based governance better confront the problem with harsher policies, or make it worse as puritanical attitudes turn the victims into untouchable wretches and scapegoat them for the crimes of their victimizers?
America doesn’t seem to be doing any better at coming up with just solutions:
See an interview with the girl here. The judge had little choice because of California’s harsh mandatory sentencing guidelines. His options were life without possibility of parole, or 25 to life.
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Kawthar
Research by the Open Society Institute for West Africa has found Qur’anic teachers (marabouts) in Niger responsible for child trafficking
