worst human trafficking case I've ever heard of

[MacCruiskeen]

Muslamic

?

Urban Dictionary:

1. Muslamic

Coined by the infamous EDL yokel (English Defence League), who made his debut with this word in a Press TV interview during a march in Oldham, sometime in march 2011... need I say more...

EDL yokel: "Them 'Muslamic Infidels' want the iraqi law in our country... them got 'Muslamic ray guns'!!!!

Press TV reporter: "............"

by Yamaha FZ8 Apr 10, 2011

2. Muslamic 11 up, 1 down

The religion that uneducated cretins believe Muslims follow.

Like, ohmigod, I heard that Michael Jackson became Muslamic before he died! Also, I can see Russia from my porch.

...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Muslamic

[LilyPatToo]

Probably just a minor point to many people here, but it is possible to be "trafficked" in a series of upscale restaurants, by genial and "connected" businessmen, for crissakes. A sale is an exchange of money, goods or services and doesn't have to be interstate or international to be human trafficking. This is one of the ways that I see semantics currently being used to obfuscate slavery in the US. Discounting the crime if the victim isn't of 3rd world origin is another distracting method by which domestic rings of human traffickers are allowed to flourish in a blatantly (well, to me, at least) manufactured "gray zone." This kind of pre-vetting/invalidation of cases of exploitation just makes me nuts. Slavery is slavery no matter where it takes place or what its victims look like. Please don't fall for the ongoing creation of selective blindness in this creepy field. Ghods, how I wish Jeff was still writing on this subject...

LilyPat

[Stephen Morgan]

Mr Muslamic Ray Guns is who I was alluding to, yes.

But to me, and I think in colloquial use generally, trafficking is differentiated from other instances of, say, pimping child, by range. Hire out your children to the neighbours, that's not trafficking. Sell them to some Belgians, that's trafficking. Anyway there's a lot of charges against these chaps, but only the one count of trafficking, so I'd assume it's not just any exchange of cash for kiddies.

[operator kos]

Alright. I owe everyone an apology for using expletives, for name calling and for my caustic tone in general. Operator Kos, I apologise for calling you an imperialist.

Appreciate that.

Kos, the articles that 82 posted actually illustrate how ineffectual the war on trafficking has been. "Accused, involved, accused".

Actually, I said:

I think 8bitagent's posts at the top of page 2 touch upon some of the deeper issues at play, and also provide some excellent references. I would encourage you to look over what he said as I couldn't put it much better myself.

But anyways...

What it seems to boil down to is the way that the term "human trafficking" is used. I understand now why you're averse to the phrase given the way it has been used by people who use it as an excuse to further brutalize women and the poor. I'm with Project Willow, though, when she says that we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I don't think people who willing choose to trade sex for money should be persecuted or prosecuted. (There is a gray scale for degrees of how fully voluntary or desperate/coerced by circumstances someone is in their participation, but that's another discussion). I DO think that people who enslave and coerce others, particularly children, into prostitution a) exist, and b) ought to be confronted. Whether we're talking about someone who keeps people literally shackled in some third-world hell hole, or someone who employs sophisticated MKULTRA methods of control, both are abhorrent. THAT is what I'm talking about when I say I'm opposed to human trafficking. It is the most extreme manifestation of fascism that I can imagine. Given what you've said, however, I will consider if there is better language to use. Any suggestions?

[Joe Hillshoist]

Muslamic

?

Urban Dictionary:

1. Muslamic

Coined by the infamous EDL yokel (English Defence League), who made his debut with this word in a Press TV interview during a march in Oldham, sometime in march 2011... need I say more...

EDL yokel: "Them 'Muslamic Infidels' want the iraqi law in our country... them got 'Muslamic ray guns'!!!!

Press TV reporter: "............"

by Yamaha FZ8 Apr 10, 2011

2. Muslamic 11 up, 1 down

The religion that uneducated cretins believe Muslims follow.

Like, ohmigod, I heard that Michael Jackson became Muslamic before he died! Also, I can see Russia from my porch.

...

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Muslamic

[blanc]

Khan and Aziz have each been charged with trafficking according to the link, the wording in each is different. In the second case, it refers to 'girls' plural. So, more than one alleged perpetrator charged, more than one victim. In the first case the location is specified, in the second case not. The crime is no less a crime if it takes place within a first world country, as LP2 argues above. I expect more details will come through later.

I did enjoy the muslamic protester clip, a man who knows his own mind even if no-one else can fathom it.

[Project Willow]

There's no way I'm ever lying down with this evil woman. Right wing evangelicals are taking over the trafficking issue. Notice how there's no mention of families trafficking children, or kids younger than 12.

http://am.blogs.cnn.com/2011/06/21/in-d ... sex-trade/

In Depth: New billboard campaign in Seattle unmasks child sex trade

This week, CNN's In Depth series, "The CNN Freedom Project," is highlighting the growing efforts to stop the trade and exploitation of human beings.

This morning, Linda Smith, founder and president of Shared Hope International and former US Representative, talks with Carol Costello about her organization's new billboard campaign, "Do You Know Lacy?."

Aimed at raising awareness of child sex trafficking by focusing on the plight of Lacy, one young girl who represents the thousands of children being prostituted in the US and around the world, the campaign will soon launch nationally.

http://www.sharedhope.org/WhatWeDo/Prevent/CommunityAwareness/DoyouknowLacy.aspx

What I do hope they accomplish is getting law enforcement and the courts to stop arresting and prosecuting teen prostitutes, but I can see this effort leading to abuses like those that Parel began to outline, especially if it is being led by people like Linda Smith.

[wintler2]

So how to fight slavery & forced prostitution without punishing the legitimate (or, if morally squeamish, pragmaticly unstopable) trade in sex? I don't think i'm inventing fire by saying that its about where the power lies and the money flows. There is no sense in or defence for trying to prohibit me from selling my body, but someone else controlling who has access to my body is a practice wide open to abuse of power.

Would a law & custom on who the buyer pays help? eg. must pay me directly, not my pimp/'organiser'. Imagine if every John followed that rule, wouldn't that make coerced prostitution at least a little harder, as every coerced prostitute would have at least some possibility of escaping economic bondage?

This wouldn't help when Johns/buyers already know they are breaking the law (eg. paedophilia) but it should help separate out the two industries (voluntary prostitution & slavery), the better to catch the downright evil one. Just an idea.

[Project Willow]

So how to fight slavery & forced prostitution without punishing the legitimate (or, if morally squeamish, pragmaticly unstopable) trade in sex? I don't think i'm inventing fire by saying that its about where the power lies and the money flows. There is no sense in or defence for trying to prohibit me from selling my body, but someone else controlling who has access to my body is a practice wide open to abuse of power.

Would a law & custom on who the buyer pays help? eg. must pay me directly, not my pimp/'organiser'.

This is why worker rights advocates seek legalization of course. Those who argue that prostitution is inherently exploitative (who would disagree with your second point) work to block legalization. Seems to me there are other, more subtle issues often neglected in the debate. Perhaps this is a topic worthy of its own thread.

If all women were raised free from sexual abuse, had complete control over their own sexuality, had their choice of mates, and were offered a range of work or self-support opportunities, would any of them still choose to do sex or porn work? What would that "work" look like? We cannot know. I may have just offended some by merely asking the question, but it points to a few of the central contentions between the various positions on the issue.

[wintler2]

This is why worker rights advocates seek legalization of course. Those who argue that prostitution is inherently exploitative (who would disagree with your second point) work to block legalization. Seems to me there are other, more subtle issues often neglected in the debate. Perhaps this is a topic worthy of its own thread.

Undoubtedly, but is this the place. It seems from my not entirely 2nd hand experience of prostitution that it is inherently exploitative, but thats no reason not to explicitly legalise and regulate it. Exploitative relations are basic to the function of our economy, why make the powerless suffer for a standard noone else meets?

If all women were raised free from sexual abuse, had complete control over their own sexuality, had their choice of mates, and were offered a range of work or self-support opportunities, would any of them still choose to do sex or porn work?

At a guess, a very small %, for a brief time, diminshing as cultural memory fades.

What would that "work" look like? We cannot know.

But its good to try to think about, to throw some markers out into black space to say, "maybe it'll go here..". It'll come, i believe.

[8bitagent]

Media is claiming reports of child prostitution are grossly inflated:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43582811/ns ... nd_courts/

[blanc]

The media does like to distract with numbers, intrinsically meaningless numbers. Most of the stats. they deliver on almost any topic are phoney, in the sense that you need to read carefully to understand what they refer to. The prosecution figures are not any help btw. Too little police work goes on to rely on these as an indicator. Aside from this, I wonder why we have to be hit with numbers? One child's story would be shocking enough, might knock the complacency and lies aside. Or don't we get angry anymore at obscene abuse of power?

[8bitagent]

The media does like to distract with numbers, intrinsically meaningless numbers. Most of the stats. they deliver on almost any topic are phoney, in the sense that you need to read carefully to understand what they refer to. The prosecution figures are not any help btw. Too little police work goes on to rely on these as an indicator. Aside from this, I wonder why we have to be hit with numbers? One child's story would be shocking enough, might knock the complacency and lies aside. Or don't we get angry anymore at obscene abuse of power?

Well it's just seen as one of those abstract "yeah that sucks, but what are ya gonna do?" type things. Yet, the government/media/authorities fixate on chasing phantom Islamo-boogeymen, going so far as to use FBI informants to create them where none exist. Things just seem...odd. The media will make a big hoopla about some pop: 500 podunk town general store refusing service to a black guy, but will completely ignore a rising tide of savage hate crimes. Even when an abduction case grabs everyone's attention, it's seen as a oneoff case(even tho the media seems to routinely for decades fixate on these)
I can't explain it.

You'd THINK if they devoted 1/50th the time/money/resources/paid humint/CIA NSA spook intel gathering/communication wiretapping/etc they do on "going after jihadis" that they'd be able to
put a dent in this phenomenon.

[Project Willow]

Hmmm, seems to be a trend, does it really mean anything however?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/07/13/mexico.human.trafficking/index.html

Mexico changes constitution to combat human trafficking
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 14, 2011 7:57 a.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

President Felipe Calderon announces two changes to the Mexican Constitution
He gives Mexico's Congress 180 days to create a nationwide human trafficking law
Calderon says many are unaware of how widespread human trafficking has become
A victim recounts her experience being lured into prostitution


Mexico City (CNN) -- Mexico's president approved several changes to the country's constitution Wednesday aimed at cracking down on human trafficking.

President Felipe Calderon announced two of the changes -- one that requires those accused of human trafficking to be imprisoned during trials, and one that guarantees anonymity of victims who denounce the crime.

"It is important that they can give their testimony to the authorities and to society without being at risk," he said.

Calderon gave Mexico's Congress 180 days to approve a new nationwide human trafficking law that will reform and streamline how authorities handle such cases across the country.

"There are thousands and thousands of cases, in a society that is still unaware of the seriousness of this crime," he said. "We have to break through this curtain ... that is hiding from the Mexicans a criminal reality that is in front of us."

With increasing frequency, he said, criminal organizations that ship and sell drugs and weapons have added human trafficking to their repertoire.

In addition to Calderon's speech, Wednesday's presentation included a video testimony from an anonymous woman who recounted how a man lured her into a vicious human trafficking network over the internet.

The man was in his 30s, she said, and she was in high school. He made her an offer she felt she couldn't refuse -- work as an event promoter with a daily salary of 700 pesos (about $60), with food and transportation included. When she arrived in the affluent city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, the reality was very different, she said.

"He made me take drugs, and prostitute myself. There were no honest friendships for anyone. Only money was important," she recalled. "Out of fear I would obey the drug traffickers."

Earlier this year a report from Mexico City's human rights commission estimated that 10,000 women were victims of human trafficking in Mexico's capital, but there were only 40 investigations of the crime and three convictions in the city in 2010.

The discrepancy is an "alarming figure" that shows a need to improve laws and policies, according to the commission, which called the phenomenon a "new form of slavery."

On Wednesday, Calderon asked lawmakers and citizens alike to take action.

"We have to create a unified front to end human trafficking in Mexico," he said. "This front is not limited to police or officials, this front starts in the streets, in the neighborhoods and in the communities."

[wintler2]

Brothel safety a dangerous myth

Caroline Norma
July 15, 2011
Comments 50

There is an alternative to a model that profits from the prostitution of others.

STAFF at Consumer Affairs Victoria must have broken into a cold sweat this week reading a report in The Age about a prostitute who plans to sue a brothel over a violent incident there. The ability of Consumer Affairs to continue to collect licensing fees from pimps, otherwise known as ''sex work service licensees'', who run legal brothels in Victoria depends on news about violence against women in the brothels not becoming public.

The report related to the case of a woman whose ''client'' threatened her with a gun in a legal Melbourne brothel after she refused to have unprotected sex with him.

Sexual assault statistics for women in street prostitution in Victoria are easily found, but no government or academic research documents violence in brothels.
Advertisement: Story continues below

Consumer Affairs publicly promotes the view that ''indoor'' prostitution is a safe and reasonable job option for the women of Victoria. It is able to oversee a legalised brothel industry only as long as the rhetoric of harm minimisation remains a plausible policy option.

According to this rhetoric, turning to prostitutes is an ''inevitable'' habit of men that needs to be catered to in warm, safe, high-security brothels that are monitored by government. The brutality of street-based prostitution gives the rhetoric its force. Street prostitution is dangerous and socially undesirable, so the Victorian government responds to the problem by channelling women out of St Kilda's dark alleys and into brothels, where their health and safety is supposedly guaranteed by checks by Consumer Affairs staff.

The rhetorical strategy that justifies Consumer Affairs' continued collection of licensing fees starts to unravel when journalists and academics report on brothel violence.

Three NSW academics who interviewed women in legal brothels in 2011 found that physical safety was one of the women's biggest concerns, and one interviewee told researchers she feared men ''coming into the parlour knowingly infected and forcefully removing … [condom] protection, becoming acutely physically violent''. Even a report commissioned by Consumer Affairs in 2009 noted the difficulty women have in getting men to agree to condoms in legal brothels.

The idea that women are safe and protected in legal brothels in Victoria is a bureaucratic fantasy. Even the organisation funded by the state government to support its harm minimisation approach to prostitution, RhED, is not fully confident of the safety of indoor venues. It advises women on its website that they should check brothels have ''duress'' alarms, ''and one that is not at the base of the bed or tucked under the carpet where you can't reach''.

The sexual violence inherent to prostitution doesn't vary much according to whether it's perpetrated in cars or brothel spa baths.

A number of other countries take a very different approach to prostitution. Sweden, South Korea, Norway, and Iceland have all enacted laws that reflect the view that prostitution - even prostitution in legal brothels - is unacceptable and should not be encouraged in gender-equal societies, let alone profited from. These governments have introduced the Swedish model of legislation, which penalises people who profit from the prostitution of others (pimps), as well as those who seek to pay for the services of prostitutes.

Under the model, prostituted people are seen as victims of violence, and do not attract criminal penalty. Rather, responsibility shifts to the men who are trading, profiting from, and using women in prostitution.

The Swedish model does more than just criminalise prostitution. It also mandates public education campaigns and retraining of police on the harm of prostitution, and encourages empirical research on the issue. Exit programs are offered to women to help them with housing, employment, legal and medical issues, and drug dependency. The Korean government offers a monthly stipend to help women exit prostitution, and runs education programs for men.

When Consumer Affairs staff next receive a licence fee cheque from the Melbourne brothel Butterflys of Blackburn, where the woman was threatened with a gun by a customer, they might remember the Swedish model, and the alternative vision for a gender-just society that it offers.

-

Caroline Norma is a lecturer in the School of Global Studies, Social Science and Planning at RMIT University, and a member of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women Australia.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/societ ... 1hfwh.html

Some great comments at link. The line "prostitution is going to happen anyway, might as well decriminalise & manage it..." comes in for a real beating.