Ottawa-Gatineau part of national human trafficking blitz
By Derek Spalding, OTTAWA CITIZEN January 28, 2014
OTTAWA — Police from across the country identified girls as young as 15 being forced into prostitution, according to numbers from a national anti-human trafficking blitz conducted last week.
Officers in 26 cities, from Alberta to Newfoundland, were involved in the two-day campaign that yielded interviews with 330 women, eight arrests and 28 individual charges.
Despite appearances, the women do not want to be prostitutes, according to a news release issued by Ottawa police Tuesday
“Investigators found several teenagers and young women were being forced to perform through threats of violence, physical intimidation, drug dependency and other forms of coercion,” the release states. “Part or all of the proceeds from the sexual encounters were kept by their controller or pimp.”
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Ottawa+Gatineau+part+national+human+trafficking+blitz/9440594/story.html
Ottawa Police takes part in a National Focus on Young Women Coerced Into Sex Trade
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
(Ottawa)—Last week, police services from across Canada participated in a two-day blitz focusing on the growing concern that young women are being forced to participate in the sex trade. This project was coordinated by the Durham Regional Police Service.
“Operation Northern Spotlight” involved 26 police services from across Canada and took place on Wednesday January 22 and Thursday January 23, 2014.
Over 330 women, some as young as 15 years of age, were interviewed. Police found some were being forced to perform sexual acts, multiple times a day, for paying male customers.
http://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/MediaRoom/NewsReleases/14-01-28/8c3172c6-7799-4b38-a93e-bd5ab9f0f4cf.aspx
Showing posts with label sex trade. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sex trade. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Obama Outlines Steps To Fight Human Trafficking, NO WAY OUT BUT ONE
Clinton Global Initiative: Obama Outlines Steps To Fight Human Trafficking
AP/THE HUFFINGTON POST By BEN FELLER 09/25/2012
NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama called human trafficking nothing more than "modern slavery," outlining new steps on Tuesday to combat the exploitation of workers and children in the United States and abroad.
Obama said in an address to the Clinton Global Initiative that he was not using the term of "slavery" lightly, noting that it evoked a painful past for America. But he said the U.S. and international community need to step up efforts to help more than 20 million victims of human trafficking around the globe, calling it an "injustice" and an "outrage."
Human trafficking, Obama said, "must be called by its true name: modern slavery."
The president said the trafficking of people contributes to "the debasement of our common humanity," ''tears at our social fabric," endangers public health and fuels violence and organized crime. He listed victims ranging from workers who toil for little pay, are abused and barred from leaving their jobs, young boys who are turned into child soldiers and forced to kill, and impoverished girls who are sold into the sex trade....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/25/obama-human-trafficking-cgi_n_1913051.html
NO WAY OUT BUT ONE
ONE-HOUR EDUCATIONAL VERSION
In 1994, Holly Collins felt she had run out of legal options and there was simply no other way to keep her children safe. So she kidnapped her own kids and went on the run. Hunted by the FBI, she and the children lived in the shadows with the help of a loosely organized "underground" that helped victims of domestic violence and abuse find safety. Holly ultimately found safety in the Netherlands. There she became the first American to be granted asylum by the Dutch government as a result of domestic violence.
"NO WAY OUT BUT ONE" examines how Holly's efforts to protect her children from her abuser were by blocked by the very courts charged with keeping them safe. The film reveals a shocking national scandal: In the American family court system, loving parents can lose custody of their children simply because they seek to protect them from abuse....
http://store.documentarychannel.com/No-Way-Out-But-One-p/1286-e.htm
Monday, May 14, 2012
New task force targets traffickers who force children into the sex trade
New task force targets traffickers who force children into the sex trade
FBI, Chicago police join forces to go after pimps
By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter
May 14, 2012
Inside the Harrison Police District station, the officers sat in a semicircle to be briefed about the shift ahead in one of Chicago's most beleaguered areas.
But on this recent day, the topic was not the shootings and murders on these West Side streets, but a crime often pushed far back into the shadows — the thousands of young girls and women who are prostituted, pushed into the violence of Chicago's sex trade.
FBI Special Agent Jonathan Williamson and Chicago police Sgt. Traci Walker were there to announce a new joint effort by the FBI and Chicago police to target child traffickers in the city....
The clandestine nature of sex trafficking makes it difficult to know exactly how many young women and girls work in prostitution, said DePaul College of Law researcher Jody Raphael. She has estimated that in Chicago as many as 25,000 are involved in the commercial sex trade, including exotic dancers.
Many who work the street or are sold on the Internet started out in the business in their teens. A 2008 survey of Chicago women working in prostitution who were 25 or younger and under the control of a pimp found that they began at 16 on average.
The younger the girl or woman, Raphael believes, the more likely it is she has a pimp or trafficker, in part because she is often recruited first into a romantic relationship.
Over the past decade, advocates have pushed law enforcement to re-examine how it views the crime of prostitution — especially for the young adults caught in the trade. Today, investigators are going after traffickers on one hand while extending social services to women working in prostitution. Chicago police, Cook County and federal authorities meet monthly to target offenders for the toughest punishment.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-human-trafficking-20120514,0,7415972.story
FBI, Chicago police join forces to go after pimps
By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter
May 14, 2012
Inside the Harrison Police District station, the officers sat in a semicircle to be briefed about the shift ahead in one of Chicago's most beleaguered areas.
But on this recent day, the topic was not the shootings and murders on these West Side streets, but a crime often pushed far back into the shadows — the thousands of young girls and women who are prostituted, pushed into the violence of Chicago's sex trade.
FBI Special Agent Jonathan Williamson and Chicago police Sgt. Traci Walker were there to announce a new joint effort by the FBI and Chicago police to target child traffickers in the city....
The clandestine nature of sex trafficking makes it difficult to know exactly how many young women and girls work in prostitution, said DePaul College of Law researcher Jody Raphael. She has estimated that in Chicago as many as 25,000 are involved in the commercial sex trade, including exotic dancers.
Many who work the street or are sold on the Internet started out in the business in their teens. A 2008 survey of Chicago women working in prostitution who were 25 or younger and under the control of a pimp found that they began at 16 on average.
The younger the girl or woman, Raphael believes, the more likely it is she has a pimp or trafficker, in part because she is often recruited first into a romantic relationship.
Over the past decade, advocates have pushed law enforcement to re-examine how it views the crime of prostitution — especially for the young adults caught in the trade. Today, investigators are going after traffickers on one hand while extending social services to women working in prostitution. Chicago police, Cook County and federal authorities meet monthly to target offenders for the toughest punishment.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-human-trafficking-20120514,0,7415972.story
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Responding to Village Voice on Sex Trafficking
Responding to Village Voice on Sex Trafficking
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF March 21, 2012
After my Sunday column criticizing Village Voice Media for providing a forum for sex traffickers on its Backpage.com websites, Village Voice has struck back. It has just gone on line with an article “What Nick Kristof got wrong”:
The article begins:
Nicholas D. Kristof was wrong about the most devastating ‘fact’ in his Sunday, March 18th, column in The New York Times regarding Backpage.com. He wrote about an underage victim of human trafficking: “Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.” A video that accompanied his online op-ed was headlined: “Age 16, She Was Sold on Backpage.com” That is not true. According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003. Backpage.com did not exist anywhere in America in 2003.
It’s interesting that Village Voice doesn’t dispute anything in my column or the accompanying video, but only the online blurb for the video. The Voice is right that Alissa was 16 in 2003 — for about two days. In fact, Alissa turned 16 at the end of 2003. So all during 2004, she was 16 years old. And so it was in 2004, not 2003, that she was traveling up and down the east coast being pimped. Backpage operated in at least 11 cities during 2004, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale, both of them cities Alissa where says she was pimped on Backpage. Then at 17, as Backpage expanded to 30 cities including Boston, she was pimped even more broadly on Backpage — and also in Village Voice print ads, she says.
Moreover, contrary to what the Voice says, Alissa continued in the sex trade until 2007, when she got out for good. Backpage was steadily expanding and becoming a major force in this period, and pimps routinely used it to sell her, she says.
I’m frankly a bit surprised that Village Voice is even trying to deny its role. Attorneys General around the country have linked Backpage to arrests for trafficking of underage girls in 22 different states. As my column noted, one recent case involved a 15-year-old girl here in New York. A previous column I wrote cited a 13-year-old girl peddled on Backpage.
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/responding-to-village-voice-on-sex-trafficking/
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF March 21, 2012
After my Sunday column criticizing Village Voice Media for providing a forum for sex traffickers on its Backpage.com websites, Village Voice has struck back. It has just gone on line with an article “What Nick Kristof got wrong”:
The article begins:
Nicholas D. Kristof was wrong about the most devastating ‘fact’ in his Sunday, March 18th, column in The New York Times regarding Backpage.com. He wrote about an underage victim of human trafficking: “Alissa says pimps routinely peddled her on Backpage.” A video that accompanied his online op-ed was headlined: “Age 16, She Was Sold on Backpage.com” That is not true. According to Alissa’s court testimony, she was 16 in 2003. Backpage.com did not exist anywhere in America in 2003.
It’s interesting that Village Voice doesn’t dispute anything in my column or the accompanying video, but only the online blurb for the video. The Voice is right that Alissa was 16 in 2003 — for about two days. In fact, Alissa turned 16 at the end of 2003. So all during 2004, she was 16 years old. And so it was in 2004, not 2003, that she was traveling up and down the east coast being pimped. Backpage operated in at least 11 cities during 2004, including Miami and Fort Lauderdale, both of them cities Alissa where says she was pimped on Backpage. Then at 17, as Backpage expanded to 30 cities including Boston, she was pimped even more broadly on Backpage — and also in Village Voice print ads, she says.
Moreover, contrary to what the Voice says, Alissa continued in the sex trade until 2007, when she got out for good. Backpage was steadily expanding and becoming a major force in this period, and pimps routinely used it to sell her, she says.
I’m frankly a bit surprised that Village Voice is even trying to deny its role. Attorneys General around the country have linked Backpage to arrests for trafficking of underage girls in 22 different states. As my column noted, one recent case involved a 15-year-old girl here in New York. A previous column I wrote cited a 13-year-old girl peddled on Backpage.
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/responding-to-village-voice-on-sex-trafficking/
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking 293,000 young people may be at risk
"... an estimated 293,000 young people who may be at risk for being trafficked specifically for the sex trade."
"Global estimates suggest there are upwards of 27 million people in slavery around the world"
Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking
By James R. Marsh on June 1, 2011
Human trafficking is arguably one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time. The United States Department of Justice has estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 foreign men, women, and children are trafficked into the United States each year.
While estimates indicate that thousands of child trafficking victims exist in the United States, very few have been identified and recovered. Between 2001 and 2009, only 212 foreign minors were successfully recognized by U.S. authorities as victims of trafficking.
Human trafficking is a relatively new issue and emerging area of knowledge for most social service, legal, and law enforcement professionals. It was only in 2000 that the first federal anti-trafficking statute, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), was enacted.
http://www.childlaw.us/2011/06/child-welfare-response-to-chil.html
Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking
Center for the Human Rights for Children, Loyola University Chicago
International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA)....
Human trafficking is arguably one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time. The United States Department of Justice has estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 foreign men, women, and children are trafficked into the United States each year.1
These estimates, however, do not include U.S. citizens who have been trafficked, including an estimated 293,000 young people who may be at risk for being trafficked specifically for the sex trade.2
Women and children may comprise as much as eighty percent of the total number of victims of human trafficking.3
These unprotected young children and adolescents are forced into prostitution, domestic servitude, restaurant work, and other types of exploitative labor, or simply find ways to survive on the street....
Global estimates suggest there are upwards of 27 million people in slavery around the world....
16,000 women and girls are commercially sexually exploited
in the metropolitan Chicago area, with an average age of 12 years old at entry. Over 60% enter prostitution before the age of 18.
http://www.luc.edu/chrc/pdfs/BCWRHandbook2011.pdf
"Global estimates suggest there are upwards of 27 million people in slavery around the world"
Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking
By James R. Marsh on June 1, 2011
Human trafficking is arguably one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time. The United States Department of Justice has estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 foreign men, women, and children are trafficked into the United States each year.
While estimates indicate that thousands of child trafficking victims exist in the United States, very few have been identified and recovered. Between 2001 and 2009, only 212 foreign minors were successfully recognized by U.S. authorities as victims of trafficking.
Human trafficking is a relatively new issue and emerging area of knowledge for most social service, legal, and law enforcement professionals. It was only in 2000 that the first federal anti-trafficking statute, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA), was enacted.
http://www.childlaw.us/2011/06/child-welfare-response-to-chil.html
Building Child Welfare Response to Child Trafficking
Center for the Human Rights for Children, Loyola University Chicago
International Organization for Adolescents (IOFA)....
Human trafficking is arguably one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time. The United States Department of Justice has estimated that between 14,500 and 17,500 foreign men, women, and children are trafficked into the United States each year.1
These estimates, however, do not include U.S. citizens who have been trafficked, including an estimated 293,000 young people who may be at risk for being trafficked specifically for the sex trade.2
Women and children may comprise as much as eighty percent of the total number of victims of human trafficking.3
These unprotected young children and adolescents are forced into prostitution, domestic servitude, restaurant work, and other types of exploitative labor, or simply find ways to survive on the street....
Global estimates suggest there are upwards of 27 million people in slavery around the world....
16,000 women and girls are commercially sexually exploited
in the metropolitan Chicago area, with an average age of 12 years old at entry. Over 60% enter prostitution before the age of 18.
http://www.luc.edu/chrc/pdfs/BCWRHandbook2011.pdf
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