Geneva, Switzerland – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, urged the republic of Gabon to adopt urgent measures to tackle trafficking in children from West and Central Africa into the country, including traditional and cultural factors that exacerbate this phenomenon.

“I am confident that Gabon can become a model for other countries in the region and beyond in the fight against trafficking,” she stressed.

“Although the Government has adopted legislation to combat human trafficking, significant gaps remain,” Ms. Ezeilo said at the end of her official visit to Gabon from 14 to 18 May. “There are a number of challenges that must be addressed by the Government if it is to succeed in effectively combating trafficking in persons and protecting the human rights of trafficked victims of all ages.”

The rights expert underscored that current laws limit protection to victims under the age of 18 and do not provide for all forms of exploitation including labor and sexual exploitations, slavery and removal of organs.

“I urge the Government to expand the scope of trafficking, to explicitly widen the forms and scope of protection to both trafficked women and men as per the Palermo Protocol, aimed at preventing, suppressing and punishing trafficking in persons.”

Gabon is a destination and transit country for trafficked persons from the sub-region of West and Central Africa. Boys and girls below the age of 18 predominantly from Benin, Mali and Togo are attracted to coming in the country, which is seen as one of the wealthy economies in the region, with prospects and opportunities for work.

“Most common forms of trafficking in Gabon are domestic work for young girls, servitude, and to some extent forced and early marriage; while for boys, work in the informal sector including auto mechanics and hard labor are common,” she said while noting that root causes of trafficking, include poverty and traditional practices, especially in West Africa, of sending children to live with relatives and demand for domestic workers by rich Gabonese families.

“The trend, forms and manifestation of trafficking in persons are not well-understood in Gabon, and there is a general lack of awareness and knowledge of trafficking in persons beyond child trafficking for exploitative labor,” Ms. Ezeilo stressed. “As a result, other victims of trafficking remain invisible and unrecognized by not only the general population, but also the victims themselves and the competent authorities.”

The human rights expert called on the authorities to help improve the understanding of the nature and scale of the problem of trafficking in persons in the country, through the collection of reliable national data to determine the prevalence rate, forms, trends and manifestation of human trafficking, including of children and women.

“With a coastal border of more than 800kms and a porous border with 3 countries, Gabon requires good cooperation with its neighbors to fight the phenomenon of trafficking,” she said, stressing that so far the signing of agreements with neighboring states have not materialized in spite of initiative of the government.

The Special Rapporteur also expressed her concern about the absence of a specific visa program to enable victims of trafficking to remain legally in the country, as well as for the safe return and repatriation of victims of trafficking. In her view, there is always a risk of re-trafficking and re-victimization, especially for trafficked children because family members are implicated in the exploitation of victims of trafficking.

During her five-day mission to Libreville, Ms. Ezeilo met with government officials from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Labour, Social Affairs and Family, Interior and Defense. She also met with the Public prosecution, the Police’s service for protection of minors, the monitoring committee in charge of implementing the platform of action on trafficking of children for the purpose of labor exploitation, the National Commission for Human Rights and civil society organizations.

“More importantly,” she stressed, “I met with victims themselves, including foreign girls during my visits to the government run Angondjé Shelter and two other shelters for girls and boys run by civil society organizations.”

Image Courtesy of    Brad Ruggles

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The movie “Taken” released in 2008 brought to light and grabbed the attention of millions across the world as the movie raised awareness about one of the fast growing industries in the world: Sex trafficking.

While the movie revolves around girls being smuggled as traveling tourists in western European countries, then addicted to drugs and forced into prostitution, there is one thing that the movie doesn’t recognize; this is not something foreign that is going on. It’s not just in Europe or Asia or Africa. It’s happening right here in the United States, in our very own backyards.

According to Sarah Vardaman, Senior Director of Shared Hope International, “the majority of the victims that we’re finding who are child sex-trafficking victims are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.” And According to the U.S. Department of Justice, sex-trafficking is growing at an alarmingly fast rate.

“In 2005, the Department of Justice reported there have been an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 sex slaves in the U.S,” reported International Crisis Aid on their website. They also pointed out that “in 2009, a University of Pennsylvania study estimated nearly 300,000 youth in the United States were at risk of being sexually exploited for commercial uses.”

One of the youths that represent this statistic is 16-year-old Brianna (her real name was changed for her own protection), who was 12 and living in New York City at the time that she was captured.  Brianna had gotten into an argument with her mother one evening and decided to leave the house for the night with plans to stay with her friend’s older brother.

Her plans of returning home in the morning changed in an instant when she found out her friend’s older brother was a pimp and she was now his property. From that point on, Brianna’s life changed forever and her childhood had been taken from her.

The first thing the pimp did was lock her in a room where he took several provocative pictures of her and then posted her on Backpage.com. This website is known to be the most advertised and popular website in America today for sex trafficking. According to AIM Group, “Backpage accounts for about 70 percent of America’s prostitution ads.”

Brianna  was repeatedly beaten and advertised on Backpage.com. After three years of living in fear, bearing sexual and physical abuse and being demoralized by men willing to pay to watch her perform sexual acts on the web, Brianna managed to escape. She ran away to a place called “Gateways,” which is a treatment center for girls ages 12-16 that have been victims of the sex trafficking trade.

New York Times’ Reporter, Nicholas Kristof claims Brianna, who is now receiving the therapy and support she needs, is one of the “lucky few.” According to the Huffington Post, “Brianna is one of one hundred thousand American girls exploited through commercial sex.”

Kristof believes that this is a growing epidemic, similar to that of the AIDS virus. The sex and human trafficking industries keep growing and if more people aren’t informed soon, or willing to raise awareness and learn about what’s going on right before their eyes, then many more young girls’ childhoods will be swiped out from under them and they will be robbed of having any future at all.

If you are interested in helping putting a stop to this rapidly growing industry and want to learn more about sex/human trafficking please join or check out the campaigns at:

WWW.HumanTrafficking.org & WWW.NotForSaleCampaign.org.

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When sex slavery comes to mind, most people think they cannot relate. What you should relate to is that it is happening a lot closer than you think. Sex slavery is one of the biggest and less noticed issues in the United States; even though it’s a billion a year enterprise and composed of mostly teen girls. Known for occurring overseas, sex trafficking is a commercial form of slavery a person under the age of eighteen is forced into. It is led by fraud and force. Thriving each and every minute, sex slavery is becoming more and more common in the United States, which has grew into over a twenty-eight billion dollar enterprise. Even though the sex industry is one of Americas booming industries, the consequences and downfalls of the industry are ignored. There are over one million slaves worldwide and about 17,000 end up working in the United States. Trapped with no way out, sex slaves have little hope, but is there hope? Celebrities and founders are known for helping charities, organizations, and finally there is someone who took on the war against sex slavery.

Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher launched their own non profit foundation against child sex slavery in 2007. DNA’s, the Demi and Ashton foundation, purpose is to hopefully abolish sex slavery by raising awareness through award shows, events, and communication with sex slave survivors. Phrases such as “Freedom.. its in our DNA” and “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” are raising attention to not only the government, but celebrities. Bradley Cooper well known from the Hangover, just recently joined the Real Men Don’t Buy Girls campaign by creating a video on what real men do. Music Superstar Drake, Justin Timberlake, and even Eva Longoria have joined the fight against sex slavery. Sex Predators use social media and the internet on about 77% of deals made within sex trafficking. Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher hope to use that against them by using Social Media to raise awareness and hopefully prevent it from happening. Getting to the “heart” of sex transactions is where DNA will try to take a stand.

Appearing on Regis and Kelly, CNN, and the Pepsi Research Project, Demi and Ashton’s goal was to reach out to as many people as possible. With Facebook and Twitter created for the organization, DNA hopes to use social media as a backfire to all sex traffickers. They are working and combining forces with other sex slavery projects, such as the Polaris Project in Washington D.C., to help Americans understand the issue of sex slavery and how it can happen to anyone, no matter your location or gender.

Most Sex Slaves are enticed by fake ads and job opportunities, such as housekeeping and dressmakers in papers in countries like Ukraine. Once arriving at there fake job, women are enslaved and forced to have sexual encounters with over twenty men a day. Most of this happens in rural areas where there is nowhere to escape. Most sex slaves are women, but the scary part is most of them are under the age of 18, with the average age for a sex slave in the United States being thirteen years old.

Every ten minutes another sex slave is trafficked into the United States, so what can you do about it? Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher provided a three step process for people to help take a stand against sex slavery on demiandashton.org. First, join the “Real Men Don’t Buy Girls” campaign by creating a video on what real men do instead. Justin Timberlake showed the men shave instead of buying girls on his video. The Real Men videos can be viewed on the website. Next, reporting any sex slavery seen on the internet or suspicions can help end sex trafficking online. This can be done by reporting to Craigslist, Facebook, and cybertipline.com. Finally, you can help raise money and awareness by doing it in style. The DNA t-shirt can be found online at stevenalan.com and all funds go to the DNA foundation. All of these actions can finally help put an end to sex slavery in the United States. Raising awareness is the first step to stopping the traffickers. So, go out and help put an end to sex slavery by showing that Real Men Don’t Buy Girls.

vipflash / Shutterstock.com

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In a recent statement reported by China Daily, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao showed his support of the growing effort to help children who are forced to become beggars – children who are often abused, exploited or worse; victims of abduction.

It is the last concern that has fueled a national campaign, led by the public in an unusual display of NGO activity, to stop child traffickers and return lost children to their biological parents. According to HumanTrafficking.org, China suffers from an epidemic of internal trafficking of children for sexual or labor exploitation and estimates suggests between 10.000 to 20.000 victims each year. One reason is that child beggars are an unfortunate source of revenue for crime organizations. In major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, child beggars are not an unusual sight but their stories often involves being kidnapped and even deliberately crippled to raise profit.

Another reason is that the cultural values surrounding children has fueled a market for child trafficking. China’s ‘one-child’ policy – combined with a preference for sons – is held partly responsible for the development. Some parents are prepared to buy a stolen child if they are unable to have a boy of their own and the price is estimated to be around $5.000, according to the BBC. The cultural value, however, is much higher as is the male child that continues the family name and traditionally takes care of the elderly parents along with his wife. A daughter ends up being a social disadvantage as she is obligated to take care of her in-laws. Another aspect is that couples who are unable to conceive a child would be desperate enough to buy one illegally because adoption is complicated and most children who are delivered to orphanages are disabled.

Der Spiegel investigated the tragic phenomenon last year and found that desperate parents of kidnapped children had only small chances of tracking down their child. Family clans control things in the villages and corruption is ever present. “Everyone knows when a new child has suddenly arrived in the village,” Lo Shouquan told Der Spiegel in an interview, “and no one asks any questions.”

Between 2001 and 2005, the Chinese police led a strong campaign against trafficking and arrested more than 25.000 suspected traffickers while rescuing more than 35.000 victims. In November 2009, two men were executed for abducting and selling 15 children in total. In 2010, a woman was sentenced to death for 49 accounts of trafficking. Despite the effort, the numbers of abductions are still soaring and grassroots activity has taken over where the government seems to have failed. The most remarkable example of activism is the use of microblogs to connect parents with lost children; the pioneer is a professor from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who encouraged his readers to take photos of child beggars in the hopes that parents could identify missing children. The microblog inspired the creation of thousands similar sites and the most recent success story was Peng Wenle who was found, after having been snatched three years ago, through a user on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

Despite a hopeful surge in public interest, China is listed on the Tier 2 Watch List in the 2010 U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report where it has been noted that the Chinese government fail to sufficiently address the country’s trafficking problem. The recent comment by Premier Wen Jiabao may be a step in the right direction but a massive effort is needed to effectively crack down on the lucrative trade. In the meantimes,   parents are advised to keep their children under a watchful eye.

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