A forthcoming report documents United Nations workers exchanging relief goods for sex.

If anything could stand to rival the devastation of the natural disasters to strike Haiti, it would be disasters of the manmade variety.

Just over five years after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake killed well over 100,000 people in the country and destroyed countless government, religious, and cultural landmarks, Haiti’s recovery is not only far from over, it’s far from certain. An ongoing domestic political crisis is just one culprit.

Other sources of considerable trouble are the very humanitarian organizations that are supposed to help revive the country. Much of the food aid given by the United States in the wake of the 2010 earthquake—totaling well over $100 million—is believed to have actually harmed struggling Haitian farmers, who were already trying to sell corn and rice against cheaper imports.

Read More “A Humanitarian Mission Becomes a Disaster …”

Patagonia tried to stop human trafficking in its supply chain, but, as recently as 2011, internal audits found continuing abuses. Is the problem too massive for companies to solve?

In the more than 40 years since its founding as a clothing company, Patagonia has become a symbol of well-heeled outdoor adventure. But the apparel and sporting company, which sells everything from fleece jackets to smoked salmon, thinks of itself as more than just a retail company. Patagonia is an accredited and founding member of the Fair Labor Association; its website is as much an educational tool about environmental and social responsibility—filled with information on issues such as preservation of land in Chile, labeling GMO products, and responsible sourcing—as it is an online store. In a note launching the company’s food division, Patagonia Provisions, company founder YvonChouinard restated the brand’s central ethos: “We aim to make the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and perhaps most important, inspire solutions to the environmental crisis.”

And yet, despite these aspirations, four years ago internal audits turned up multiple instances of human trafficking, forced labor, and exploitation in Patagonia’s supply chain, according to Cara Chacon, the company’s director of social and environmental responsibility, and Thuy Nguyen, the manager of supply chain social responsibility and special programs.

The audits examined not Patagonia’s first-tier suppliers—the factories that cut, sew, and assemble Patagonia’s products—but the mills that take raw materials and produce the fabrics and other parts that later become jackets, backpacks, and so on for the world’s adventuring class. About one-quarter of those mills are based in Taiwan, and the majority were found to have instances of  trafficking and exploitation.

The problems stemmed from how those mills found the people to work their factory lines. They didn’t hire workers themselves and instead turned to so-called labor brokers.These labor brokers charged migrants exorbitant, often illegally high fees in exchange for jobs. There were other red flags, too. Suppliers would open bank accounts into which the workersdeposited their paychecks, so that fees for labor brokers could be automatically deducted. Workers’ movements were also restricted through the confiscation of passports. The recruitment and hiring process used by many labor brokers can create a cycle of fear and debt that leaves workers neither able to leave their jobs nor to make a decent living.

Read More “All Your Clothes Are Made With Exploited Labor ….”

Thanks to a shortage of women created in part by China’s one-child policy, the country has become a hotbed of human trafficking. Desperate men pay exorbitant rates to marriage brokers who trick women into coming across the border and sell them like slaves.

Despite the country’s failure to crack down on the practice, the U.S. State Department last year moved China from Tier 3 status (where it can be sanctioned on non-trade and non-humanitarian aid) to Tier 2 watch list (countries that consistently fail to meet minimum standards, but make promises for future compliance) in its annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report. This year’s report is due out this month.

More than 30 years since its inception, the unintended consequences of China’s one-child policy, coupled with its long-standing preference for male babies, have created a significant gender gap. The advent of sonograms allowed families who wanted a son to abort unwanted girls, a practice that became more frequent with the one-child policy. Experts now say China’s skewed sex ratio contributes to the trafficking of women and forced marriage.

Read More “Sex trafficking and forced marriages flourish under China’s one-child policy …”

Read More “Malaysia Finds 139 Graves in Horrifying Human Trafficking Camps ….”

 

He was an ex-convict, serving eight years in prison on drug and robbery charges. Today, Sam Pollinzi and his wife Sherry work every day to rescue exploited women from prostitution and sex trafficking – an industry direct

Read More “From Ex-Convict to Rescuing Women Out of Sex Trafficking and Saving Babies from Abortion…”

 

Key points from three different resources:

http://humantraffickingsearch.net/wp/invisible-men-male-victims-of-sex-trafficking/

* Males remain a largely invisible population within the dialogue on sex trafficking. According to a 2008 study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, in fact, boys comprised about 50 percent of sexually exploited children in a sample study done in New York, with most being domestic victims.
* Experts say that the law enforcement’s attitudes toward male victims are still weighed down by gender biases in trafficking discourse, which pins females as victims and males as perpetrators. Therefore, male victims in custody often fall through the cracks of services that could be offered to help them because they are not properly assessed for sexual exploitation.
* “Responses are more or less the same – how can a boy be trafficked, they’re much stronger than girls, they could get out of it if they wanted to so,” says Genna Goldsobel, state policy coordinator of ECPAT-USA, a national anti-trafficking organization based in New York.

Read More “Men and Boys in Sex Trafficking Overlooked …”