Human trafficking epidemic 21st century slavery hits close to home, ‘A Culture of Silence’ speaks for Sierra Leone, Sexual Offences Bill to be published next week

Former journalist says human trafficking an epidemic
21st century slavery hits close to home By Maddy Lauria  Nov 13, 2014

Rehoboth Beach — The Sussex County Republican Women's Club received a harsh reality check when veteran journalist Christine Dolan described a human trafficking case that struck close to home.

“Listen up … you don't have a clue,” Dolan said as she began to discuss her more than decade-long experiences with human trafficking. “Just like the Industrial Revolution, just like the Victorian era, just like the African slave trade, you are living in the digital age of slavery in the 21st century. It is not just on the street. It is over the internet.”

Dolan, who worked for ABC and CNN in the 1980s, was commissioned by the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children to study child exploitation in 2000....

Dolan said Easton, Md., shows human trafficking occurs close to home. While many attendees raised their hands to say they were familiar with the town, most audience members voiced surprise that a brothel, operated a few doors down from a Mexican restaurant on Dover Street, was busted just a few years ago, leading to sex trafficking convictions in fall 2013....

Now Dolan is on a mission to spread the word that human trafficking crimes are proliferating throughout the world, which she outlined in her “Tots to Trafficking to Terrorism” presentation during the club's dinner meeting Oct. 22. She said globalization and increased internet access provide ways for everything from child pornography to trafficking for torture to make a mark on international markets.

“Terrorism is a transnational, transcriminal network. Trafficking is transcriminal, transnational network,” she said. Dolan said groups like al-Qaida and the group known as the Islamic State are trafficking organizations with a hand in sex and labor trafficking as well as torture rituals.

Dolan outlined the main branches of human trafficking to include sex and labor, sex tourism, child pornography, child soldiers, organ trafficking, skin trafficking and ritual abuse torture. Dolan cited an evidence comparison by Interpol that 89 percent of online incidents affect victims between the age of 6 and 12, while 10 percent include victims age 3 and younger. She said there have been great efforts made since 2000, but the demand for younger victims has increased, with a jump from 3 percent in 2005 to the recently reported 10 percent of young trafficking victims....
http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/former-journalist-says-human-trafficking-an-epidemic/1261490

‘A Culture of Silence’ speaks for Sierra Leone
By Peter Keough  Globe Correspondent   November 13, 2014

For most people, the sufferings of African countries such as Sierra Leone, which has endured a hellish civil war only to be confronted with the Ebola epidemic, are regarded as passing news items.

For the documentary filmmaker Raouf J. Jacob, however, Sierra Leone is his beloved homeland. Forced to emigrate to America with his family in 1999 in the midst of the internecine conflict, he returns in “A Culture of Silence” to the place of his birth to see how it has rebounded from its bloody past. He and his partner and fellow filmmaker Lara M. Moreno tour the country with their camera to see how it has confronted its intransigent problems. These include poverty, the exploitation of resources by foreign corporations, cultural misogyny epitomized by the practice of female genital mutilation, and the legacy of war embodied by its most tragic victims — child soldiers kidnapped by warlords and forced to kill....
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/11/13/movie-review-culture-silence-speaks-for-sierra-leone/ypwHqK9NW73pMBJsysudUK/story.html

Sexual Offences Bill to be published next week, says Minister for Justice
Legislation will strengthen laws on grooming, pornography and harassment
New legislation on sexual offences will strengthen laws on grooming, pornography and harassment, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has said.

Fiona Gartland
Thu, Nov 13, 2014,

....“It will include strengthened provisions on age of consent, grooming and harassment,” Ms Fitzgerald said. “And it will strengthen offences of acquiring pornography online.”

The department received approval from the Cabinet to draft the legislation last December. It had been described as “long overdue” by organisations working in the field and by politicians including Senator Jillian van Turnhout.

The Minister also said yesterday that she would bring forward legislation on victims’ rights and on domestic violence in the new year....

Victims’ rights The new victims’ rights legislation will be introduced in 2015 so that Ireland can comply with its obligations under the EU victims’ directive, which was adopted at European level in 2012.

The directive includes obligations to protect victims from harm and intimidation and provide access to information, services and compensation.

Ms Fitzgerald said the new legislation would be “a very important mark of a change of approach to victims” and would reposition victims so their needs are central to the criminal justice system....
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/sexual-offences-bill-to-be-published-next-week-says-minister-for-justice-1.1998434