Cheri Fleming, Governor

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Camino Real Region

• Cheri Fleming, Governor
• Julie Mairs, Chair
• Soroptimists STOP Trafficking
• 2008-2010
• October 13, 2008
• Slide will change after 30 seconds

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•  It is the mission of Camino Real Region to bring
  together women from all walks of life and to
  enable them, through the development of their
  leadership skills, to truly make a difference in
  their communities and throughout the world.     

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Camino Real Region

• Organizing theory of our opposition to
  trafficking and the enslavement of women and
  girls in this country and world-wide.
• Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
  except as a punishment for crime whereof the
  party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist
  within the United States, or any place subject to
  their jurisdiction. US Constitution Amendment
  XIII Slavery Abolished (1865)

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Someones daughter is on the Road, as traffic,
against her will
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Someones daughter is on the Road, as traffic,
against her will

• Young women used in forced labor and prostitution
  face routine violence from employers, pimps and
  customers
• Most of these daughters will not ever be able to
  return home out of shame or because of the stain
  on their families honor even if they sold her.

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Someones daughter is on the Road, as traffic,
against her will

• Every 60 seconds a woman is trafficked somewhere
  in the world
• Every 10 to 30 minutes
• someone is trafficked into
• the USA, or about 18,000
• to 52,00 persons a year

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Someone's daughter is on the Road, as traffic,
against her will

• Young women used in forced labor and prostitution
  face a wide range of diseases and adverse effects
  like
• HIV-AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases,
  
• Early and forced marriage,
• tuberculosis,
• rape and unwanted pregnancies leading to
  abortions,
• beatings, post-traumatic stress disorder,
  suicide, and
• death by murder.

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Someones child is on a Road, as traffic,
against her will

• The little brick-maker consent is irrelevant

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HUMAN TRAFFICKING
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HUMAN TRAFFICKING

• Human trafficking is currently tied with arms
  dealing as the second largest criminal industry
  in the world, right after drug dealing which is
  the largest criminal industry in the world.

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HUMAN TRAFFICKING

• Human trafficking is is the fastest growing
  criminal enterprise delivering 15,000 to 50,000
  persons for sale into the USA each year.
• 80 percent of human trafficking cases in
  California occur in Los Angeles, San Diego, or
  San Francisco.

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Where does the Traffic come from?

• Traffic Map

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Where does the Traffic go to?
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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGDefined - USA The elements of
the crime of Human Trafficking include
If one condition from each category is met, the
result is trafficking. For adults, victim
consent is irrelevant if one of the Means is
employed. For children consent is irrelevant
with or without the Means category.
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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGDefined - USA

• Trafficking in Persons is
• The recruitment, harboring, transportation,
  provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or
  services,
• through the use of force, fraud, or coercion
• for the purpose of subjection to involuntary
  servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery." -
  United States

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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGSlavery
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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGSlavery Today Defined

• Slavery today is similar to forms of slavery that
  have existed for centuries in that these
  characteristics are found
• Control through violence or threat of violence
• Exploitation for profit
• Loss of free will

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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGSlavery Today Life is Cheap

• Modern forms of slavery however, are much
  different in several important ways
• No longer a need for legal ownership
• People caught up in slavery today can be
  purchased and sold for as little as 100
  (compared to 10 times that much in the 1850s). As
  a result, people become "disposable" i.e.,
  easily replaceable.
• Slavery cuts across nationality, race, ethnicity,
  gender, age, class, education-level, and other
  demographic features.

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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGSlave Labor - USA

• Contemporary slavery/human trafficking remains a
  reality for many victims in the United States,
  where both American citizens and foreign
  nationals are trafficked into and within the
  United States for forced labor.
• Hearing-impaired Mexican men, women and children
  were forced to peddle items on the streets of New
  York to earn money for their traffickers

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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGSlave Labor - USA

• South Asian women forced to work in a textile
  factory without pay and with constant physical
  and sexual violence against them
• Young American girls forced to prostitute
  themselves on the streets of Los Angeles (and
  dozens of other cities) while under constant
  physical and sexual violence from pimps and those
  purchasing the sex

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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGSlave Labor USA
Maria Suarez Maria was sold into slavery at the
age of 15 in a suburb of Los Angeles. Her owner
was an elderly man with a wife. Police would
later report that the man was 'an old lecher' and
'brujo' or sorcerer, who bought young girls from
Mexico and trading them in when they turned 20
years of age.                
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Girls Exploited, Trafficked and Enslaved
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Girls Exploited, Trafficked and Enslaved

• The US Department of State estimates that each
  year, more than two million children, mostly
  girls, are exploited in the global commercial sex
  trafficking trade, many of them trapped in
  prostitution..1

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Girls Exploited, Trafficked and Enslaved

• Child Sex Tourism engages tourists, mostly men,
  in sex trafficking by purposely traveling to
  known sex destinations, seeking anonymity in
  pornography or prostitution, or engaging in
  pederasty with young children and homosexuality
  with young and older adults.

                                               
                                   
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HUMAN TRAFFICKINGSlavery Victims
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Victims Adolescent GirlsCustomers/exploiters
come from all over the world. The PROTECT Act
makes it illegal for an American to sexually
abuse a minor in another country.
Perpetrators can receive up to 30 years in jail.
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Victims Women and girls, hidden in the shadows
and out in the open for all to see

• The U.S. Department of State estimates between
  600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across
  international borders each year.
• Millions more are enslaved within national
  borders.

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Victims Mother

• This desperate mother traveled from her village
  in Nepal to Mumbai, India, to find and rescue her
  teenage daughter who was trafficked into an
  Indian brothel. Nepalese girls are prized for
  their fair skin and are lured with promises of a
  "good"
• job and the chance to improve
• their lives.
• "I will stay in Mumbai, until I find my
• daughter or die. I am not leaving
• here without her."

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Victims Girl Child

• Street kids, runaways, or children living in
  poverty can fall under the control of traffickers
  who force them into begging rings. Victims of
  organized begging rings are often beaten or
  injured if they don't bring in enough money. They
  are also vulnerable to sexual abuse.
• Children are sometimes
• intentionally disfigured
• to attract more money
• from passersby.

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Victims Defenseless

• Young girls are prized in the carpet industry for
  their small, fast fingers.
• Defenseless, they do what they're told, toiling
  in cramped, dark, airless village huts from
  sunrise until well into
• the
• night.

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Corruption The Root Cause of Exploitation,
Trafficking and Slavery
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• Corruption Defined
• Is behavior in any organized, inter-dependent
  system in which part or all of the system is
  either
• not performing duties it was originally intended
  to,
• or is performing them in an improper way, to the
  detriment of the system's original purpose.
• This behavior has connotations of evil,
  malignance, sickness, and loss of innocence or
  purity.

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• Corruption Effects
• Threatens security and damages trust in systems
  which affect peoples daily lives.
• Is a particular concern for the worlds police
  and judicial systems, as corruption in one
  country can compromise an entire international
  investigation.
• Does not itself produce poverty, but does have a
  direct and immediate impact on economic growth
  and good governance, which in turn raises poverty
  levels

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• Corruption Makes crime safe for criminals
• Is a manifestation of public and private
  institutional weakness, poor ethical standards,
  skewed incentives and insufficient enforcement.
• Terrorists, traffickers and other organized
  criminals rely on the complicity of corrupt
  public and private leaders to carry out their
  illegal activities.

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• Political/Public Corruption Defined
• The dysfunction of a political system or public
  institution in which government officials,
  political officials or employees seek
  illegitimate personal gain through actions such
  as bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism,
  patronage, graft, and embezzlement.
• Reflects the impairment of integrity, virtue, or
  moral principles and inducements to do wrong by
  improper or unlawful means.

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• Political/Public Corruption Effects
• Access to politics and political will are
• organized with limited transparency, limited
  competition and
• directed towards promoting narrow interests that
  impose barriers to equity, mobility and basic
  freedoms.

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• Public and Private Corruption Makes crime safe
  for criminals
• Fuels trans-national crime like
• Human trafficking,
• Forced and coerced labor
• Slavery, and
• Sex trafficking and prostitution.

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• Political and Private Corruption Makes sex
  trafficking and prostitution possible
• Prostitution, legal or not, is inherently
  harmful and dehumanizing, and fuels trafficking
  in persons, a form of modern-day slavery.
• Few activities are as brutal and damaging to
  people as prostitution.

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• Political and Private Corruption Makes sex
  trafficking and prostitution possible
• Legalized prostitution expands the market for
• commercial sex,
• opening markets for criminal enterprises, and
• creating a safe haven for criminals who traffic
  people into prostitution.

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• Institutional Strength - Prosecution Works
• Swedish aggressive prosecution of customers,
  pimps, and brothel owners began in 1999 and in
  two years resulted in

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• Institutional Strength - Prosecution Works
• a 50 percent decrease in women prostituting,
• a 75 percent decrease in men buying sex, and

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• Institutional Strength - Prosecution Works
• A reduction of trafficking for the purposes of
  sexual exploitation.

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What can we do as Women?Report Trafficking

• Clues
• Accompanied by a controlling person or boss not
  speaking on own behalf
• Lack of control over personal schedule, money,
  I.D., travel documents
• Transported to or from work lives and works in
  the same place
• Debt owed to employer/crew leader inability to
  leave job
• Bruises, depression, fear, overly submissive.

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What can we do as Women? Report Trafficking

• CALL THE COPS!
• National Human Trafficking Resource Center at
  1-888-373-7888 attended 24/7
• Your local police department
• For more information on human trafficking, visit
  www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking.

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Institutional StrengthsWhat Works- Especially
in the USA

• Civic Involvement Works
• Awareness, Advocacy, Action
• Public Awareness of the crime
• Public Demand for action on the crime
• Political Will to combat the crime
• Resource Allocation to prevent and intervene
• Law Enforcement that knows what to do
• Criminal and Civil Prosecution
• Victim Protection
• Determined Women

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Civic Institutional Strengths USA
Soroptimist
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Who Are We To Organize Against Trafficking?

•    WE ARE SOROPTIMISTS
• We are part of a network of Soroptimist clubs all
  over the world.
• Our purpose is to do work that makes a
  difference to improve the status and transform
  the lives of women and girls, in local
  communities and throughout the world.

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What can Clubs do about Trafficking?

Soroptimists STOP Trafficking (SSTR)
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What are Clubs encouraged to do locally? SSTR

Objective More than 90 of clubs will support at
least one SI Project.
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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• AWARENESS

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• Educate members about what trafficking and sexual
  slavery are, the root causes of this activity,
  costs to communities and warning signs that it
  may be happening in your community.
• Bring more educated eyes and ears to bear on this
  matter.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• Educate interested community social and economic
  groups on this matter, the warning signs and the
  costs to the community.
• Get this matter on the agenda of government,
  social and economic action groups in your
  community.
• Raise awareness and demand for action on this
  matter in your community.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• ADVOCACY

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What can Clubs do locally?SSTR

• Build demand for a gender analysis of local
  budgets
• Identify resources intended to prevent, intervene
  and prosecute trafficking and sexual slavery
  crimes.
• Build demand for transparency in the actions of
  local government to address this matter for the
  benefit of the community and the victims.
• Assure that resources intended for the abatement
  of trafficking are appropriately and
  efficaciously targeted and effectively applied in
  service to victims and the community

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What can Clubs do locally?SSTR

• Map and publicize the gaps between the location
  of trafficking services and the known locations
  from which or to which victims are trafficked.
• Map the Gaps http//www.endviolenceagainstwomen.or
  g.uk/data/files/map_of_gaps.pdf
• Sex in the City http//www.eaves4women.co.uk/POPPY
  _Project/Documents/Recent_Reports/Sex20in20the2
  0City.pdf

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What can Clubs do locally?SSTR

• ACTION

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• Support the installation of valid programs in the
  primary and secondary grades to teach and foster
  respect between boys and girls.
• Increase the potential for girls to have the
  confidence to resist situations of exploitation.
  
• Increase the possibility that boys will reject
  the mistreatment of girls as being compatible
  with notions of manhood.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• Support Awareness-Building Projects with money,
  memberships or hands on support
• Bring more educated eyes and ears to bear on this
  matter.
• Get this matter on the agenda of government,
  social and economic action groups in your
  community.
• Raise awareness and demand for action on this
  matter in your community

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• 7. Support Social Reintegration Projects with
  money, memberships or hands on support
• 8. Support Protection Projects with money,
  memberships or hands on support
• 9. Support Rehabilitation Projects with money,
  memberships or hands on support

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• Support Training for Journalists in Human
  Trafficking
• Address how the media positively and/or
  negatively affects and drives community attitudes
  toward corruption, use and exploitation of and
  lack of respect for women and girls as reflected
  particularly in the realm of gender relations.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• Support Training for Journalists in Human
  Trafficking
• Address these issues as embedded in the internet,
  television, music, movies and print media.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• Recruit a Local High Profile Spokesperson
• Partner with local nonprofit organizations
  engaged in the struggle against trafficking and
  slavery.
• Encourage a focus on the "volunteers" in these
  partner organizations who provide programmatic
  collaboration.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• 12. Provide Information on this crime to 1,000
  persons.
• Involve victim survivors in this public effort.
• Get this matter on the agendas of persons in
  positions of power and influence in your
  community or area.
• Mobilize political will needed to bring policy
  and procedure changes that will benefit victims
  and survivors of this crime.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• 13. Organize a trafficking protest at a local
  transportation hub.
• Get this matter on the agendas of persons in
  positions of power and influence in your
  community or area.
• Mobilize political will needed to bring policy
  and procedure changes that will benefit victims
  and survivors of this crime.
• Empower local children and their parents in this
  matter.

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What can Clubs do locally? SSTR

• 14. Provide financial support and assistance
  with permits and other needs for a Region-level,
  30 day, public information campaign to place bus
  and train cards with anti-trafficking messages on
  trains and busses.
• The card could give a number for persons at risk
  to call for help.
• The card would also refer the viewer to a contact
  path to learn about a Soroptimist club in their
  community.

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What can Clubs and Girls do?

• LIL SSTR

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What can Clubs and Girls do? Lil SSTR

• Help to provide Information on this crime to
  1,000 persons.
• Be involved through their groups (scouts, sports
  teams, youth clubs, and S clubs) and their
  parents in this effort as well.

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What can Clubs and Girls do? Lil SSTR

• Help to provide Information on this crime to
  1,000 persons.
• Girls can put on art shows, readings, plays or
  other communication-related activities on this
  matter ands how it affects children.

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What can Clubs and Girls do? Lil SSTR

• Organize a trafficking protest at a local
  transportation hub.
• Girls can march in protests against trafficking,
  engage in discussions of their perception of
  trafficking, learn self-protective mechanisms,
  and participate in public speaking.

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Why let girls do? Lil SSTR

• Cut the
• Power of
• Risk
• Grow the
• Power of
• Resilience

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What did one woman do for 2,500 children during
the holocaust?
Irena
Sendler, credited with saving 2,500 children from
the Warsaw Ghetto, died in May, 2008 at age 98. A
social worker, she organized about 20 people to
help smuggle children out of the ghetto. She was
caught and tortured by Nazis, but never gave up
information on the rescue effort. Source AP 
Photo Alik Keplicz, AP
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Thank you for your attention!
With love, Lil SSTR