JADA PINKETT SMITH brought the issue of human trafficking to the stage. She has named CAST as her beneficiary, supporting an effort for us to raise $50,000 for our shelter. Click here to view pictures of our shelter.  Support our Chime for Change campaign.

Read more about the event >

The Women's Foundation highlighted CAST as one of the top 10 organizations. Read More Here.

Thank you for your continued generosity, and for supporting CAST’s mission.

RSVP to denimday@peaceoverviolence.org

Start a conversation with CAST and The Hamper. We are teaming up with The Hamper this week to make a line of cause tees that represent the mission of CAST. These shirts are affordable and represent what we at CAST are fighting for. For every shirt that you purchase at www.TheHamper.org, The Hamper will donate $8 to our programs. This will help liberate individuals, help them start normal lives, and abolish modern day slavery forever. Turn your clothing into a canvas of awareness today! You can check out some of the clothing offered this week below!

These shirts and apparel are limited edition, so get yours this week! And remember to share this campaign and your purchase through Facebook and Twitter! Visit The Hamper Facebook Page and tell us what this cause means to you!

"Set Them Free" at: www.TheHamper.org/endslavery

The Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) has been nominated to win the Women’s Foundation of California “People’s Momentum Award” – a $10,000 grant.  We just need the most votes to win!

Please click here to vote by noon PDT on Thursday, March 28. It will take less than 15 seconds, but will make a tremendous difference to the survivors we serve.

Since the beginning of the fiscal year, CAST has seen a 47% increase in our active case load. In the same period, our hotline calls have more than doubled. This $10,000 will allow CAST to provide 4 months of 24-hour hotline services for victims to receive help and escape their trafficking situations.

How you can help CAST get more votes:

1. Facebook - Share the post that is on CAST’s Facebook page on your own Facebook page.
2. Retweet or Tweet @CASTLA

Thank you for your help! We hope to update you with $10,000 worth of good news on March 28!

President Obama Expected to Sign Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) into Effect on Thursday, March 7, 2013

Together We Did It!: Support and Awareness About the Issue From Anti-Slavery Groups Like CAST Helped Bring Legislators Together to Support the Bill’s Passage

LOS ANGELES – (March 6, 2013) - President Obama is expected to sign the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) (part of the passage of the Violence Against Women Act) this Thursday, March 7, 2013. The bill was passed by the Senate three weeks ago and by the House of Representatives on February 28, 2013, with an overwhelming majority of 286 -138.

The TVPRA expired in 2011, which placed important anti-trafficking initiatives, such as support services for victims, law enforcement investigations, and prevention measures, at risk. As an organization that works in the trenches, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST) celebrates the passing of the TPVRA because it will have a direct impact on protecting survivors of modern day slavery, and helping them to rebuild their lives in freedom and dignity.

"As a survivor of human trafficking, I counted on the protections I received because of the TVPA,” said Ima Matul, a former client and CAST Survivor Organizer. “Now that Congress has reauthorized this important law and the President will sign it, I am confident that more survivors like me will come forward knowing that services available at organizations like CAST will protect them and help them to rebuild their lives. That‘s what CAST did for me."

The reality of human trafficking is very real, as seen by the increased demand for CAST services in just the past year.

“In 2012 we saw a 49 percent increase in survivor intakes, and we are anticipating even larger growth in 2013, as we are already up an additional 47 percent so far this fiscal year,” said Kay Buck, Chief Operating Officer at Los Angeles-based CAST. “The passing of this Act is critical in allowing CAST to continue to create awareness and provide services to the survivors that have endured such horrific acts of violence and abuse.”

“On behalf of the survivors who seek refuge at CAST, we thank the legislators who came together with bi-partisan support for the bill’s passage – and all of the people who took the time to call their senators and representatives urging them to vote for the bill,” Buck added. “Together, we did it! Modern-Day Slavery: It Ends With Us.”

ABOUT THE COALITION TO ABOLISH SLAVERY AND TRAFFICKING (CAST)

Established by Dr. Kathryn MacMahon in Los Angeles in 1998, CAST (www.castla.org) is a not-for-profit, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual human rights organization dedicated to serving survivors of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. CAST’s mission is to assist persons trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and slavery-like practices and to work toward ending all instances of such human rights violations.

CAST provides comprehensive long-term services through a three-pronged empowerment approach, which includes Social Services, Legal Services, and Outreach and Training. The organization also operates the first shelter in the nation solely dedicated to serving victims of trafficking and established the first partnership of its kind with Saban Free Clinic – a family clinic in Los Angeles trained to address the health and mental health needs of trafficking victims.

CAST has been nationally and internationally recognized for its dedication to the identification of trafficking survivors, the mobilization of all sectors of the community to identify and advocate against trafficking, and the provision of direct services for victims.

CAST will be hosting its 15th Annual From Slavery to Freedom Gala in Los Angeles this May. Please come and help us celebrate the changes that occur when a coalition of diverse and dedicated community members, business leaders, volunteers, donors, students and survivors come together to make a difference. For inquiries, please contact Wendy Santana at wendy@castla.org.

Thanks to all those who joined CAST and other anti-trafficking organizations around the country in helping pass the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPRA)!

CAST thanks the U.S. Senate's demonstrated leadership in ending modern slavery in the United States. The passage of the TVPRA in the Senate vote brings us one step closer to passing this legislation. Next step - the House of Representatives.

CAST will continue to need your support to help pass an equivalent or even stronger version of the TVPRA in the House. We'll keep you posted on action needed.

Thank you again for joining us in assisting to reauthorize the TVPRA which will help survivors around the world and in the US.

Join us on Facebook and Twitter for updates!

The researchers studied the six most common labor sectors in which migrant laborers usually find work. They found that construction, food processing, and janitorial/cleaning were "the top three business sectors with trafficking violations and abusive labor practices." Construction had the highest rate of reported trafficking violations (35%) and abusive labor practices (63%), while agriculture, which employs most undocumented laborers in the northern part of San Diego, had the lowest rate of both reported trafficking violations (16%) and abusive labor practices (27%).

Read the Abstract Here >

To download a copy of the study, go to: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/240223.pdf

“Trafficking is an affront to human dignity and a generator of human suffering that we cannot ignore. I was disappointed that Congress failed last year to pass the bipartisan Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which would renew our nation’s commitment to end this abhorrent practice by supporting international and domestic efforts to thwart the causes and punish the perpetrators of trafficking. I applaud the tireless work of so many around the world who have joined this fight. On this National Human Trafficking Awareness Day and 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, I pledge to reintroduce this vital legislation and see it passed in this Congress. We must not turn our backs on the millions of people whose lives are destroyed by this modern day form of slavery.”

Read More >

Pierre Omidyar looked out over Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley this past February, scanning the horizon with his camera in hand. All the billionaire eBay founder could see for miles were huge, belching chimneys taller than houses and mountains of red bricks drying in the winter sun. Kids of 12 or 13 lugged bricks on their backs to and from these ovens, 80 pounds at a time. Ninety percent of the workers here in Bhaktapur, the heart of Nepal’s brick sector, are slaves. Day after day they incur more debt to the traffickers who found them these jobs and hovels to live in ...

Read the latest article in Forbes magazine >

Ethical Fashion Pioneers: Social Entrepreneur and USC Alum Andrew Park of Gallant Suits launches new menswear line to provide formerly trafficked women with the chance at freedom and life.

Los Angeles, CA (Sunday, October 21, 2012) – In Collaboration with Freedom and Fashion (FNF) and the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking (CAST), the Edgar Varela Fine Arts (EVFA) Gallery in Downtown LA will be introducing new menswear line Gallant Suits during LA Fashion Week in Downtown LA.

City leaders and top executives from the fashion and non-profit sectors will gather at EVFA Gallery to celebrate the vision of Gallant Suits. This event is aimed at bringing awareness to the issue of human trafficking - and demonstrating how social enterprise companies like Gallant Suits are bridging the gap between fashion and social justice.

Entertainment for the evening includes a live jazz band, a wine bar sponsored by PAMA Liquor, live models and ready-to-measure tailors for on-the-spot orders. CAST CEO Kay Buck will be presenting, amongst other notable speakers.

About Kay Buck & CAST
CAST opened the first shelter for trafficked women in the U.S. CEO of CAST, Kay Buck, is a fervent activist for the abolishment of the modern day slave trade. Having recently returned from a week of meetings in NYC with trafficking survivor Ima Matul and being introduced to key global influencers by President Obama, she intends to inspire legislative change and action in both government policy and the rehabilitation of survivors. As shared by President Obama on September 25, 2012, “Our fight against human trafficking is one of the great human rights causes of our time.”

About Gallant Suits & Founder Andrew Park
Andrew Park is a social entrepreneur and recent graduate of the USC Marshall Business School’s entrepreneurship program. With a love for well-fitted suits and the athletic style, Park began Gallant Suits with the vision to spark a resurgence of what it means to be a man of both style and character in modern times. The structure and the message of Gallant Suits aims to encourage the practice of philanthropy and social advocacy through the prominent LA industries of fashion, art and entertainment.

• All suits are made of 100% Italian wool with super-110 and super-120 thread quality.
• Colors are available in Navy Blue, Charcoal Grey, Black and Light Grey.
• Suits will be sold at an exclusive price for the event (30% discount).
• 100% of proceeds from suits sold at the event will go to CAST to support the rescue and shelter of formerly trafficked women in LA.

About Bonnie Kim & Freedom and Fashion
Bonnie Kim is the founder of Freedom and Fashion (FNF), a promotional vehicle that seeks to enact change by increasing access, availability and appeal for socially responsible goods.

###

RSVP & buy tickets here: http://fnfgallantsuitslaunchparty.eventbrite.com/

For press inquiries, please contact Gloria Tran:gloria@freedomandfashion.co

Event Information >

Raise the Bar Hershey! campaign welcomes Hershey's announcement to source 100% certified cocoa by 2020

Coalition urges Hershey and all chocolate companies to go 100% Fair Trade Raise the Bar, Hershey! Campaign

The Raise the Bar, Hershey! Campaign welcomed today’s announcement from the Hershey Co. (HSY) that it will be certifying 100 percent of its cocoa by 2020 and urged the chocolate giant to go 100 percent Fair Trade with incremental benchmarks. Hershey appeared to join its main rival Mars in announcing its target for certification with a 2020 deadline. Many other smaller chocolate companies are already 100 percent certified, a number of them using Fair Trade certification, the most rigorous certification for identifying and remediating the Worst Forms of Child Labor. The Raise the Bar, Hershey! Campaign released the following joint statement:

“The Raise the Bar, Hershey! campaign is pleased that Hershey is announcing 100 percent certification for its cocoa by 2020. To truly address child labor, Hershey needs to make sure it is certifying all of its cocoa Fair Trade, the only certification that adequately addresses the Worst Forms of Child Labor. Hershey should certify and label one of its top-selling, brand name bars Fair Trade within the next year, and should certify and label all of its chocolates Fair Trade by 2020. We urge Hershey to reveal how the company plans to get to 100% certification by disclosing the certifiers it will be working with as well as a timeline for converting specific product lines.

The Raise the Bar Hershey campaign, joined by over 150,000 consumers, union allies, religious groups, and over 40 food co-ops and natural grocers has been pressuring Hershey to address child labor for several years. Just this week, Whole Foods Market (WFM) announced that it was removing Hershey’s Scharffen Berger line from its shelves until Hershey took steps to address child labor in its supply chain. The Raise the Bar, Hershey Campaign! and its allies will continue to encourage Hershey, and other chocolate companies, to improve labor practices on cocoa farms and plantations.”

About the Raise the Bar, Hershey! Coalition:

GREEN AMERICA is the nation’s leading green economy organization. Founded in 1982, Green America (formerly Co-op America) provides the economic strategies, organizing power and practical tools for businesses and individuals to solve today’s social and environmental problems. www.GreenAmerica.org

GLOBAL EXCHANGE is a membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world. www.GlobalExchange.org

INTERNATIONAL LABOR RIGHTS FORUM is an advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide. www.LaborRights.org

Media Contact: Elizabeth O’Connell, Green America, eoconnell@greenamerica.org, 202-872-5309

Ima Matul was badly beaten by a boss who kept her enslaved when she arrived in the U.S. from Indonesia. Now she helps other trafficking victims through similar ordeals—and was even singled out for praise by the president at the Clinton Global Initiative.

On Tuesday, three young women stood in the center of Manhattan’s Sheraton Hotel ballroom, beaming as a room of hundreds of the most influential figures in business, politics, and philanthropy from across the globe rose to their feet and cheered. On stage, President Obama had just finished telling the tales of these women’s escape from human slavery to the audience at the Clinton Global Initiative, where hundreds of leaders gather to discuss the world’s most pressing issues. Advertisement

Sheila White, from The Bronx, had been sold into sexual servitude and abuse; Marie Godet Niyonyota, who is Congolese, was kidnapped by rebel fighters and held prisoner for years; and Ima Matul had come to America from Indonesia hoping for work. “But when she arrived, it turned out to be a nightmare. Cooking, cleaning—18-hour days, seven days a week,” Obama said. “One beating was so bad it sent her to the emergency room.”

Ima Matul and Kay Buck, her colleague at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) spoke on the phone with The Daily Beast after they returned to Los Angeles following a whirlwind week during which Matul took meetings at the White House, testified in front of Congress and had the president introduce her in front of an audience of the world’s most important change makers. The two women were still giddy with excitement from meeting with Obama (Ima and the president spoke together in Bahasa, Indonesia’s language) and other political bigwigs, jokingly complaining that they were tired from smiling so much.

“When I first met [Ima] she was so quiet and very petite,” Buck says. “But yesterday she looked like she was 6 feet tall.”

A lot has changed in the last decade since Matul transitioned from a human trafficking survivor who didn’t speak English to a jet-setting activist taking meetings in Washington, D.C.

“I was 17 when I was brought to this country,” Ima Matul began. “At that time I thought this was a great opportunity for me.” In 1997, a teenaged Matul was lured to the United States under promises of a nanny job for an Indonesian woman living near L.A., and $150 month. She suffered physical violence, mental abuse, and slave-like labor conditions without pay. One incident brought her to the emergency room when her employer’s husband said he “could see her brain” after she was badly beaten. Finally, after three years, she decided to ask the nanny next door to help her escape. Terrified of being caught by her overseer, Matul spent months trying to figure out how to write in English, and then when she did, spent months more building up the courage to get a note next door. Twelve years later, she still remembers what it said: “Please help me. I cannot take it anymore.” The woman agreed and brought her to CAST.

“The first night I was free I called my mother and we just cried the whole time without saying anything,” Matul says.

The staff at CAST, whom she now calls her family, taught Matul English and later provided a private tutor weekly until she got her GED diploma. She pauses to reflect on what would have happened to her if she hadn’t found CAST, and can’t seem to process the possibility: “I just don’t know where I’d be right now.” Matul recently started looking at colleges and hopes to study social work or public policy when she saves up enough money. But for now, she’s fully immersed the world of activism. Three weeks ago, she was hired to coordinate a group of survivors at CAST who learn lobbying, bill writing, and how to push for public-policy changes. The survivors’ backgrounds span 15 countries, but they have one thing in common: they’re all part of the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world: a human-trade industry worth $9 billion.

Matul, a 32-year-old mother of three, has been working tirelessly to further the cause of human trafficking survivors and organizations. She recently helped with a bill that outlines protections and rights for domestic workers—an issue near and dear to Matul’s heart—that’s currently sitting on the California governor’s desk.

Regulations from above cannot be underestimated in tackling trafficking. In his speech onstage at CGI, Obama outlined an impressive plan to fight what he considers modern-day slavery, assuring the audience that his administration is enacting ever-expanding reforms. “We're shining a spotlight on the dark corners where it persists,” he said. But there’s also a lot still to do. On Tuesday, he signed an executive order requiring business cooperation with the issue, and called for congress to renew the Trafficking Victims Protection Act—legislation to help identify and prosecute human trafficking situations, which expired last year.

Things are moving, but Buck says there’s still a long way to go, as more victims step forward. “The volume of cases identified has simply outpaced the funding,” she says. And for organizations dealing with survivors, a quick fix isn’t enough. The average stay for those at CAST is a year and a half, during which they are given everything someone who arrives without a dime to her name needs, from shelter and protection to medical treatment and language programs. The organization also brings over to America family members of the victims if they believe they could be targeted.

Matul’s story, incredible as it is, is just one of many. Across the globe there are an estimated 20 million human-trafficking victims. But with the overarching prevention work done by government agencies, and on-the-ground recovery provided by small charities such as CAST, a problem that has marred most of human history is being chipped at, bill by bill and story by story. Buck hopes Obama’s speech will “light some fires,” especially since many seem unaware of the magnitude of the problem that’s taking place in our backyards.

Obama addressed these voiceless enslaved people directly at CGI, saying, “Our message today, to them, is—to the millions around the world—we see you. We hear you. We insist on your dignity. And we share your belief that if just given the chance, you will forge a life equal to your talents and worthy of your dreams.”

A shining example stood under the spotlight at CGI just earlier this week. “Look what happens when people get back on their feet,” Buck says.

NEW YORK- Today at the Clinton Global Initiative, President Obama recognized CAST Survivor Organizer, Ima Matul, while announcing a major U.S government initiative to combat modern-day slavery in the United States and abroad.

CAST is an L.A.-based organization with local and international reach, and is the longest-running anti-slavery organization in the country and the first to advocate for laws to protect victims.

According to CAST CEO, Kay Buck, “Providing critical services and support that gives back dignity and hope to human trafficking survivors can only be effective if done in partnership with survivors. We thank President Barack Obama for honoring Ima Matul, a former CAST client who is now lending her voice and expertise to supporting survivors and finding collaborative solutions together to end modern-day slavery as the  Survivor Organizer at CAST.”

President Obama’s commitment to increase access to comprehensive services for survivors, who often remain unidentified and toil in forced labor or commercial sex slavery, is a tremendous support to non-governmental organizations that support them with limited resources.

Says Buck, “We are at a turning point in our awareness of this important social issue, and are now applying our learning to all sectors and asking them to take action. CAST knows firsthand that by engaging public and business sectors we can make a big difference in changing consumer or business practices to address slavery in supply chains. The President’s announcement of his plan to address forced labor by government contractors is leading the business model we can all support.”

In the annual “Trafficking in Persons Report” released by the Department of State, President Obama added and evaluated the efforts of the United States in combating modern-day slavery. The President’s announcement to increase tools and training to identify and assist victims of trafficking, increase resources for services for victims, and develop a comprehensive plan of action is greatly needed. CAST faces unprecedented numbers of victims waiting for basic services including shelter, medical care, and legal services and welcomes the President’s commitment to allocate resources to critical services for survivors.

CAST has received support from Humanity United for its model of evidence-based approaches to empower victims to rebuild their lives and impact systemic change. Humanity United’s new partnership with Goldman Sachs, “Partnership for Freedom Innovation,” announced in President Obama’s speech, will provide additional resources to expand services to survivors.  

Ima Matul, CAST Survivor Organizer and former CAST client, believes, “every victim of human trafficking deserves to receive the comprehensive services I did from CAST. These services have made me the person I am today-a survivor and an advocate. Too many survivors in the U.S. struggle without access to this life-saving support. On behalf of these survivors and those victims still enslaved, CAST thanks President Obama for his commitment today.”

By NBC News staff and wire reports

Updated at 8:40 a.m. ET: KARACHI, Pakistan -- At least 261 people burned to death as separate fires swept through two factories in Pakistan, police and government officials said Wednesday, raising questions about industrial safety in the country.

Flames raced through a garment factory in the teeming commercial capital of Karachi, killing 236 people. Weeping relatives in hospitals and morgues heaped criticism on the deeply unpopular government.

"People started screaming for their lives," said Mohammad Asif, 20. "Everyone came to the window. I jumped from the third floor."

In the eastern city of Lahore, a fire raged in a shoe factory, killing at least 25 people.

Critics say Pakistan's corrupt and ineffective government has failed to tackle the country's problems. The country is racked by a Taliban insurgency, widespread poverty, spiraling crime and daily power cuts.

"The owners were more concerned with safeguarding the garments in the factory than the workers," said garment factory employee Mohammad Pervez, holding up a photograph of his cousin, who is also a worker there and is missing. "If there were no metal grills on the windows a lot of people would have been saved. The factory was overflowing with garments and fabrics. Whoever complained was fired."

The Guardian newspaper quoted injured factory worker Mohammad Ilyas, who also said that bars on the windows had stopped workers from escaping easily:

"Some of us quickly took tools and machines to break the iron bars," he said, speaking from a hospital in Karachi, the Guardian reported. "That's how we managed to jump out of the windows down to the ground floor."

"Within two minutes there was fire in the entire factory," said worker Liaqat Hussain, 29, from his hospital bed where he was being treated for burns all over his body. "The gate was closed. There was no access to get out, we were trapped inside."

Supplied international firms?
Ali Ahmad, 33, who owns a Karachi firm called Nizam Textiles, which does not own or operate either of the affected factories, said the Karachi factory was owned by two brothers. One was out of the country and the other was missing, he said.

"The word in the industry is that he has gone AWOL, which is, frankly, a natural reaction to the way the cops and media are investigating this," he told NBC News.

Ahmad said the factory likely supplied the international market.

"If these factory owners had international clients, that means they had to worry about social compliance, which is a trip or two per year from the compliance and standards guys and other auditors who report to their foreign buyers," he said. "If the social compliance checks had been failed by the factory owners, and they were still producing for foreign buyers, then this is both a local and an international crime. It's also an ethical problem for international buyers."

He said it was difficult being an entrepreneur in Pakistan.

"You have strikes, load shedding [power outages], local mafias charging you turf protection money -- you name it," Ahmad said. "Plus you have ruthless buyers sitting in the U.S. who don't care what you do, as long as you do it on time ... we take a hit every time we're late. That means lost margins. That means we do what we need to do to make our orders, fast. This factory owner may have been working extra shifts just for that purpose."

'New radicals': Pakistan's Generation Y battles to shape country's future

On Wednesday, a provincial minister ordered an inspection of all factories and industrial plants in Sindh province within 48 hours. Karachi, home to 18 million people, is the capital of Sindh.

A preliminary provincial government report on the Lahore fire concluded that the closure of the emergency exits led to the deaths and labor and safety regulations were not applied, government sources said.

At a Karachi hospital, about 30 bodies burned beyond recognition were lined up at a morgue.

"There is no space left here. It's full," said ambulance worker Wasif Ali. "They keep coming."

Senior Superintendent of Police Amir Farooqi told Reuters that police were raiding buildings in different parts of Karachi to search for the factory owners.

In Pakistan's largest city, 'Old Glory' is flammable and profitable

Farooqi said 35 people were injured in the garment factory fire and bodies were still being recovered from the facility, which employed about 450 people.

The latest death toll in Karachi was 236, said police chief Iqbal Mahmood.

Smoke was still rising from the factory as rescue workers pulled out charred corpses and covered them in white sheets. Relatives of workers stood in the street awaiting word of their fate. Several wept.

Aid workers become targets as Pakistan faces new humanitarian crisis

The cause of the garment factory fire was not clear.

In Lahore, workers at the shoe factory suspected that the fire was caused by a problem with a generator.

"We saw our colleagues burning alive, in flames," said Shabdir Hussain, from his hospital bed. "We could do nothing. We saved our lives by jumping from the roof."

US, Pakistan should 'divorce,' ex-ambassador to Washington says

Al-Jazeera reported that the factory had been built illegally in a residential part of Lahore.

Successive governments have been unable to provide a reliable power supply so factories have to have their own generators, powered by diesel or petrol, if they want to avoid regular, lengthy power cuts.

NBC News’ Waj Khan in Islamabad and Reuters contributed to this report.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - Speaking Out by Holly Smith

WASHINGTON, September 4, 2012 – “My name is Ima Matul… I was born in Indonesia, and I was trafficked into the United States for forced labor when I was 17 years old…”

These were the words of CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus member, Ima Matul, as she began our joint testimony to support the reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in September 2011.

At age 16, Ima was forced into an arranged marriage with a man 12 years her senior. As soon as she had the chance, Ima had run away in order to escape this man’s assaults.

Luckily, Ima’s parents supported the separation from her husband; however, divorce was considered dishonorable in Ima’s town. Ima said she was left feeling ashamed.

“I wanted a different life, a better life,” she stated.

Ima traveled to the city and was offered an opportunity to work in America. The person who was to become Ima’s trafficker offered her a nanny position in Los Angeles, California.

“I thought this was a great opportunity for me,” Ima said, “I even brought my cousin with me.”

Ima stated that she and her cousin didn’t have to pay for anything.

“They took care of everything,” she said, “our passports, visas, and tickets; they promised us $150 a month and one day off a week so that we could see each other.”

However, upon arrival to Los Angeles, Ima was immediately separated from her cousin. Ima was taken to one house to work, while her cousin was taken to another. The owner of the house, a woman, listed the new rules to Ima.

“She explained about my duties around the house,” Ima said, “cooking, cleaning, laundry, caring for the children, gardening, and washing the car…I worked 18 hours a day, sometimes more, 7 days a week, with no day off.”

“I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone,” Ima continued, “I was physically and verbally abused by my trafficker every day.”

This woman discouraged Ima from any attempts to flee the house with tales of police brutality.

“She threatened me,” Ima said, “She told me that if I left, the police would arrest me and put me in jail. And in jail there were bad people who would rape me. So I was scared to leave.”

Penniless and unable to speak English, Ima believed she had no other options.

“I had no money because my trafficker never paid me,” Ima said, “And I didn't know anyone in the country besides my cousin, who I hadn’t seen since the day I arrived...I didn’t know I had any rights.”

After 3 years, Ima finally reached out for help and wrote a letter to the woman who worked next door. This woman, another nanny, arranged Ima’s escape.

“It took me a while to write that letter,” Ima said, “I didn't know how to write in English [and] I was so scared to get caught. We drove a long way; I had no idea where I was, because I never went anywhere. And we didn't communicate because I couldn’t speak much English. I didn't even bother to ask where she was taking me. As long I was out of that house, I was happy.”

The neighbor took Ima to the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) in Los Angeles, CA. When she arrived at CAST, Ima said there was a social worker waiting there for her. There weren’t many housing options available at the time, so Ima was taken to a homeless shelter. After 3 weeks, she was transferred to a transitional housing program called Alexandria House for women and children.

Through the programs with CAST and Alexandria House, Ima learned to read and write in English. She also learned computer skills and other life skills. In 2005, Ima joined a leadership development program offered by CAST called the Survivor Advisory Caucus, where she discovered her innate leadership abilities and learned how to be an advocate. Ima has been actively speaking at local and national conferences and trainings over the past four years, and she has met with state and federal legislators, officials, academics, and celebrities to advocate for increased protections for survivors. In 2010, Ima received the CAST Seeds of Renewal award for her leadership, a recognition that was given to her by fellow survivors.

Ima was recently offered a position with CAST as a survivor organizer - a first of its kind for CAST - and she becomes one of the few survivors working for anti-trafficking organizations around the country.

“It is my honor to work with CAST, an organization that helped me become who I am today,” Ima said, “I am looking forward to connecting with more survivors and to help[ing] them realize that they deserve more.”

Ima will be in charge of CAST’s survivor leadership program and the National Survivor Network, a program launched by CAST in 2011 that connects survivors of all nationalities and experiences across the United States.

“Ima is a natural leader among her peers,” stated Vanessa Lanza, Director of Partnerships at CAST, “She will be a tremendous asset to our organization and to the network, and I can’t wait to have her on board!”

Ima’s position officially starts this week, and I personally cannot wait to work more closely with her. If you would like to contact Ima about CAST’s survivor leadership program or the National Survivor Network, please email her at ima@castla.org.

We can change this by enacting H.R. 2730 which asks State Welfare Agencies to better protect and identify children at risk of human trafficking.

The Act
The Strengthening the Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act (H.R. 2730) will a help prevent child trafficking by Amending the Social Security Act to require state foster care programs, which receive federal funds under the Social Security Act, to report in their annual plan on current efforts to address all forms of human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children in their care; or report on their future plans to address the issue.

Additionally, the bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and publish best practices for: (1) training of child welfare employees and court employees on identifying all forms of child trafficking; (2) recommendations for how state welfare agencies can prevent human trafficking and; (3) licensing guidelines for residential facilities with regard to child trafficking victims.  The bill was introduced with bi-partisan support in August of 2011 and currently has 21 co-sponsors, with 5 Republicans. More Republican support is needed to make sure the bill moves in the Republican controlled house!

Action Steps You Can Take Today!

There are 19 California House Representatives we are targeting to co-sponsor H.R. 2730, you can help by mailing and/or calling your representatives and letting them know why it is important to you to that they co-sponsor this Act. It’s easy to find your Representative at the top right corner of the House's website: http://www.house.gov/representatives/  Please make calls and send emails by October 15, 2012!

Target Representatives
Rep. Wally Herger (202) 225-3076
Rep. Dan Lungren (202) 225-5716
Rep. Tom McClintock (202) 225-2511
Rep. Jeff Dunham (202) 225-4540
Rep. Devin Nunes (202) 225-2523
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Maj. Whip) (202) 225-2915
Rep. Elton Gallegly (202) 225-5811
Rep. Buck McKeon (202) 225-1956
Rep. David Dreier (202) 225-2305
Rep. Ed Royce (202) 225-4111
Rep. Jerry Lewis (202) 225-5861
Rep. Gary Miller (202) 225-3201
Rep. Kevin Calvert (202) 225-1986
Rep. Mary Bono Mack (202) 225-5330
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (202) 225-2415
Rep. John Campbell (202) 225-5611
Rep. Darrell Issa (202) 225-3906
Rep. Brian Bilbray (202) 225-0508
Rep. Duncan Hunter (202) 225-5672

1) Either leave a voice message or simply talk to the receptionist:

"Hello, my name is [YOUR NAME] and I live in [CITY/STATE]. I am calling to urge that Congressman/woman _______________ co-sponsor the Strengthening the Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act (H.R. 2730). This Act will prevent at risk youth from becoming victims of human trafficking and helping state child welfare agencies better respond to child trafficking victims needs.  Thank you."

2) Send an email to your Representative:

SUBJECT: Please Co-Sponsor H.R. 2730: Strengthening the Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act

[DATE]

Dear Congressman/woman_____________,

My name is [YOUR NAME] and I live in [CITY/STATE]. I am writing to urge you to Co-Sponsor H.R. 2730, the Strengthening the Child Welfare Reponses to Trafficking Act. The Act is an important step in preventing at risk youth from becoming victims of human trafficking.

The Strengthening the Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act (H.R. 2730) will a help prevent child trafficking by Amending the Social Security Act to require state foster care programs, which receive federal funds under the Social Security Act, to report in their annual plan on current efforts to address all forms of human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of children in their care; or report on their future plans to address the issue.

Additionally, the bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to develop and publish best practices for: (1) training of child welfare employees and court employees on identifying all forms of child trafficking; (2) recommendations for how state welfare agencies can prevent human trafficking and; (3) licensing guidelines for residential facilities with regard to child trafficking victims.

I support H.R. 2730 and for the reasons mentioned above I urge you to co-sponsor the Strengthening the Child Welfare Reponses to Trafficking Act to help end child human trafficking.

Sincerely,
[YOUR NAME]

CAST thanks you for taking action today!

Abolish 21st Century Slavery & Human Trafficking

August 10-11, 2012  |  Skirball Cultural Center  |  Los Angeles, CA

Sponsored by the Los Angeles Metro Task Force on Human Trafficking

An annual forum convening local and federal law enforcement, anti-trafficking government agencies and NGOs, business and legal-community leaders, state and federal policy makers, leading researchers, international representatives, and journalists to explore trafficking trends, foster inter-agency and NGO cooperation, and to inform and inspire business, legal and medical professionals and the public on how they can make a material impact in the fight to abolish 21st century slavery and human trafficking.

Register for the 2012 Global Human Trafficking Conference: www.slaverynomore.org/conference

From a childhood of neglect, abuse, and forced prostitution, Carissa Phelps demonstrates remarkable resilience and determination to overcome her trauma. In her book, Runaway Girl, Carissa illustrates her journey to escape her situation, seek guidance, and pursue her passion. Now an attorney and motivational speaker, Carissa actively mentors young girls to realize their potential and self worth. CAST is a strong supporter of survivor-led advocacy efforts and is proud to share Carissa’s compelling story, which can be previewed on her website at http://carissaphelps.com/.

Also check out the wonderful reviews coming in from readers and purchase a copy today.

Hundreds of FBI special agents partnered with thousands of local police officers, deputy sheriffs, state troopers, and other law enforcement personnel throughout the United States this past week, arresting those responsible for exploiting underage children through prostitution. The sixth iteration of Operation Cross Country, a three-day law enforcement action, led to the recovery of 79 children. Additionally, 104 pimps were arrested by local and state law enforcement on a variety of prostitution related charges.

“Child prostitution remains a major threat to children across America,” said Kevin L. Perkins, acting executive assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. “It is a violent and deplorable crime, and we are working with our partners to disrupt and put behind bars individuals and members of criminal enterprises who would sexually exploit children.”

Operation Cross Country is part of the Innocence Lost National Initiative that was created in 2003 by the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, in partnership with the Department of Justice and National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), to address the growing problem of domestic child sex trafficking in the United States.

“Once again, thanks to decade-long FBI leadership, it is clear that child prostitution and sex trafficking do not just occur somewhere else on the other side of the world. These insidious crimes are occurring in American cities and the victims are American kids,” said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

To date, the 47 Innocence Lost Task Forces and Working Groups have recovered more than 2,200 children from the streets. The investigations and subsequent 1,017 convictions have resulted in lengthy sentences, including eight life terms and the seizure of more than $3.1 million in assets.

Task force operations usually begin as local enforcement actions targeting such places as truck stops, casinos, street “tracks,” and the Internet, based on intelligence gathered by officers working in their respective jurisdictions. Initial arrests are often violations of local and state laws relating to prostitution or solicitation. Information gleaned from those arrested often uncovers organized efforts to prostitute women and children across many states. FBI agents further develop this information in partnership with U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and file federal charges where appropriate.

The Innocence Lost National Initiative brings state and federal law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, and social service providers from across the country to NCMEC, where the groups train together. In addition, the Department of Justice has reinforced the training by assigning prosecutors to help bring cases in those cities where child prostitution occurs.

The FBI thanks the more than 8,500 local, state, and federal law enforcement officers and agents representing 414 separate agencies who participated in Operation Cross Country and ongoing enforcement efforts.

The following list denotes FBI divisions—not necessarily actual cities—where juveniles were recovered and pimps arrested.

To learn more about Operation Cross Country and the Innocence Lost National Initiative, visit www.fbi.gov, www.justice.gov, or www.ncmec.org.

As a nominee, CAST is invited to the 2nd annual Nonprofit and Corporate Citizenship Awards luncheon to be held on Tuesday, June 19th from 11:00am to 1:30pm at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown LA.

See the full list of 2012 Nominees >

Re "16-year-old girl has pimp's name carved on her back" (Viewpoints, May 25): This year is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation yet, tragically, human beings in America are still sold and forced into sex and other forms of labor. Force, coercion, fraud and being too young to make informed choices are the shackles.

California has one of the highest rates of human trafficking in the country. Those trapped into forced labor are too afraid or don't know where or how to get help.

Senate Bill 1193 (by Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg), co-sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women-California, requires posting of toll-free hotline numbers to assist victims in getting help and the public in reporting suspicious activities. For a trafficked person an available hotline number can make the difference between slavery and freedom. Other states have enacted similar policies with positive results.

Passage of SB 1193 by the California legislature is an important step toward ending modern-day slavery.

-- Claire Lipschultz, JD, Carmichael

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, Marilyn, for that generous introduction. I spend a lot of time working to bring more and more businesses into the anti-trafficking movement. And when I talk about what corporations can do to get involved, I invariably point to Marilyn not just as a leader, but essentially as the pioneer of private-sector involvement in this struggle. So thank you, Marilyn, for bringing this conference together and for all you do for this issue.

You can’t spend time with such a business leader as Marilyn Carlson-Nelson without thinking about amazing women. Amazing women like our co-sponsor Lee Roper-Batker and the folks at the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, who are launching the “Minnesota Girls Are Not for Sale” campaign. Amazing women like the one who has been so important for me and for our host, Humphrey School Dean Eric Schwartz, who with me shared the honor of working for Secretary Clinton until recently. Just think of it: seventeen years later, our fight against modern slavery continues to be propelled by the core truth (so obvious really that it speaks volumes that it had to be said) that that amazing woman stated from a podium in Beijing – that women’s rights and human rights are indistinguishable and inseparable.

Amazing women. Like my mother, Mary de Baca, who in the 1960s did some of the first studies in Latin America of rural women’s lives and was able to join us here today. Or my sister, Suzanna de Baca, who is now here in the Twin Cities with Ameriprise -- I hope that the Women’s Foundation and others can get her looped in so she can be as active as she was in Iowa.

Amazing women. And the men who support them. Like my brother-in-law who is also here today -- Ronnie Weatherman, who works in a shelter for women who have escaped abuse with their children. Like Dean Schwartz and his leadership on humanitarian issues. I think about what these amazing men and women can teach us, and I have to think about a woman who so many of us prayed for, who inspired so many of us, especially here in Minnesota with such a large Southeast Asian refugee population.

When I sat at the table two months ago with Aun Sun Suu Kyi in the house that she was held prisoner for so many years, I was impressed not just because of her formidable knowledge of and leadership in the fight against the traffickers, but left in awe of her compassion. She told me of her warden – the man from the secret police who was responsible for her in her captivity. He would print out articles on human trafficking from the internet and bring them to her house. They would talk about how they would work together against the traffickers once change came to Burma.

Democracy and the fight against modern slavery, intertwined. Women’s rights and human rights, inseparable. When she saw me, she asked that we work with her jailer – now a General and high up in the government. Her ability to love rather than hate, to be compassionate but not weak, should be a wake-up call for all of us.

But it isn’t just amazing women of today who inspire us and show us that this fight against trafficking is part of a broader human rights agenda. In preparing for this conference, I’ve also been thinking about Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Many have forgotten that the Seneca Falls Convention came about because those amazing women travelled to London – with their husbands, their partners in the abolitionist struggle – for the International Anti-Slavery Congress, and were turned away at the door. The women had to sit outside. We’ve come such along way in this fight.

But it is about interconnectedness. From their work – and their exclusion – in the anti-slavery movement, these amazing women pulled together the conference that is seen as the cradle of the American women’s movement. Their commitment to abolition was paid back – it was Frederick Douglass who stood up on the second day at Seneca Falls (the day the men were allowed into the room) and said, in effect, “if you are fighting so hard so that I can vote, why aren’t we including women’s sufferage in this list of principles?”

Women’s rights. Abolition. Civil Rights. Voting Rights. Inseparable at the beginning, inseparable now.

Conferences like this one tell us something about how far we’ve come since the days that women were relegated to the lobby. And every time I speak at a gathering like this one, I get more and more optimistic. Because, a dozen years ago, the only conferences about this issue were held in classrooms, not concert halls. And the attendees were typically people whose only focus was the work. The few advocates and activists and members of civil society who were engaged already, representing victims or advocating for change as a lone voice in the wilderness.

In those early years of the modern movement, much of what was published about human trafficking was mainly descriptive. We needed to move from a rigor-free zone to applied research, the kind that lets us know what practices are working best to find this crime, investigate cases, prosecute traffickers, and protect victims.

Marilyn Carlson-Nelson tells the story of protesting that a grade was not as high as she thought it should be, telling her professor how much the audience had loved her presentation. “Yes Marilyn,” he said, “but your facts must equal your passion.”

Just as with Marilyn Carlson the student, in this modern abolitionist movement (in which Marilyn Carlson-Nelson as a business leader has played such a role), we must make sure that we have both facts and passion on our side.

We have seen a shift from a small, internal conversation to such interest that gatherings once held in a conference room are now held in bigger venues, such as Attorney General Holder’s recent speech at the Clinton Library in Little Rock, or here today. And now, it’s more often the case now that I’m speaking to groups of lawyers or government contractors, or students or journalists, all of whom are working to incorporate this fight into their work.

Academics and researchers from a range of disciplines have seen the way trafficking in persons intersects a wide range of issues, and are pursuing scholarship that sheds light on those connections and how they might inform the way we fight this crime. This effort has moved beyond the confines of just those who, quote unquote, “work in the movement.” And, honestly, that’s exactly what a movement needs in order to really take hold and start to deliver results. It needs new thinkers – those of you who are joining this fight for the first time – and grizzled veterans. We need that mix of wisdom and passion, experience and enthusiasm. We owe it to those who are still enslaved, wondering if anyone can or will help them.

But as many people as are enlisting in the fight against modern slavery, it’s still helpful, I think, to make perfectly clear what it is we’re talking about.

Because the Palermo Protocol, the U.N. instrument adopted in the year 2000, saddled us with a bit of an unusual term, “trafficking in persons.” Trafficking sounds like movement, when at its core, trafficking in persons is a crime of exploitation. The U.S. government uses it as an umbrella term for all of the conduct involved in obtaining a person for or maintaining that person in a state of compelled service for sex or labor. As Secretary Clinton would say, let’s just call it what it is: modern slavery, plain and simple.

“Trafficking in persons” is just the latest euphemism for a crime we’ve been euphemizing for hundreds of years. In Douglass’s time, it was called “the peculiar institution” and its victims “servants.” All so we didn’t have to confront the horror. Now, we call slavery “trafficking.” Just like we call rape “gender based violence” or assaults and murders by batterers “domestic abuse. Euphemisms can give us space to address an issue, but there are some crimes that we have to confront, no matter how disturbing.

And this is a crime, first and foremost—one that victimizes about 27 million men, women, and children around the world. In the United States, the 13th Amendment guarantees our freedom from slavery and involuntary servitude, whether you’re a citizen or an immigrant, whether you’re a man, woman or child, whether you’re being exploited for sex or labor. In the international context, we look to Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which mirrors our own Amendment nearly word for word.

When that right, the right to be free from slavery, is violated, governments have a responsibility to punish whoever violated that right, and to restore what was damaged. Only governments can do that. Only governments can arrest suspects, incarcerate traffickers, and provide legal status to their victims. That’s why it’s so important to emphasize that trafficking is a crime, and that governments are primarily responsible for fighting trafficking.

The second thing we need to do is acknowledge the fact that, even though fighting this crime is primarily government’s responsibility, government can’t do it alone. To mount a truly effective response, governments need to forge partnerships. That’s why this gathering, co-hosted by the University, the business community, and the foundation world, is so important.

Partnerships with the civil society groups who are developing new practices for finding and fighting this crime. Partnerships with faith groups and community organizations who can help to raise awareness and spur activism around this crime. With academic and policy leaders. Partnerships, critically, with the private sector. And a good place to launch partnerships between the government and the private sector is looking at the places where we’re already doing business together, and figuring out how that existing relationship may already be tainted by modern slavery.

As is so often the case, it helps to realize that this new struggle is but a chapter in delivering on the American promise of freedom, and the successes and failures of the past can inform our work, even in what appears to be a cutting-edge issue like business involvement and government procurement.

Just the other day I stumbled onto a story from 1906 about another amazing woman -- an attorney in New York named Mary Grace Quackenbos, who the New York Times dubbed, in the style of the era, “The Woman Lawyer of 3 Fifth Avenue.” She had found out about a group of men who had immigrated to this country and had become enslaved on the turpentine farms of Florida.

These 50 or so men were put to work, decimating the pine forests there to extract their sap. Every week, they had to borrow from the company store, so much for a loaf of bread, so much for a glass of water, so much for a bottle of rotgut wine. By the end of the week, their debt overwhelmed whatever they earned. It was the peonage system that plagued the American South in the years after the Civil War. It was slavery.

That turpentine—the pitch, the tar—that was derived from those trees, found its way from Florida to the ports and bases that were home to Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet. That slave labor helped keep afloat the United States Navy. Hopefully it wasn’t deliberate on the part of the Navy. The procurement officer responsible for maintaining a ship’s store of supplies probably had no idea that those barrels were the product of slave labor. They just needed the supplies.

Fast forward 106 years. Think of the purchasing power of today’s U.S. Government. The largest hirer and buyer in the country. With not only goods and services of incredible scope, but maintaining third country nationals as part of our logistics train and support in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. Governments, like businesses, need to be aware of our own “slavery footprint.”

Now there are a few ways to look at this problem, and a few realities about modern slavery that can help guide the way governments and businesses work together to meet this challenge.

For the federal government, the imperative for rooting this out of our procurement and contracting practices is clear and simple: if we are going to go around saying that eliminating modern slavery is a priority, we had first better clean our own house. That’s why we now include the United States in the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, why we are harnessing the interagency process to look at our own policies and procedures.

That leaves the question of why the private sector should get involved in this struggle.

First principles (as I learned as Alan Page’s legal intern in Attorney General Skip Humphrey’s office in Saint Paul during law school): there’s the letter of the law to think about. These days, it isn’t enough anymore just to say, “I don’t know where that product came from and I don’t care.” The most recent reauthorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, our modern anti-trafficking law here in the United States, anyone who knowingly engages in business dependent upon slave labor, or who does so with reckless disregard, can be held criminally and civilly liable. Not to mention debarment from any future work with the government.

But it’s not just about the law. As Justice Page taught me, it’s also about morality and values. It’s about what kind of company you want to be. Just as the Carlsons know what their family name should stand for when someone walks into their hotels or sits down at one of the restaurants, or books a flight through the travel agency.

And, frankly, it is also good business. Everything we know about private sector anti-trafficking work is that -- as Manpower Group’s David Arkless says -- it isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s also the smart thing to do.

Modern slavery is tainting the corporate supply chain on an alarming range of products. The traffickers are profiting through their exploitation of others. But, for lack of a better term, the cost savings associated with that exploitation isn’t being passed up the supply chain to the retailer or the buyer. But the risk certainly is, whether through the aspects of the law I just described or from the potential public outcry that would follow the revelation that a given company is dependent, even in part, on exploited labor.

Simply put, there is no amount of profits from cheap garments, of bulk seafood, of advertising revenue from a website, that can outweigh the real and lasting damage to a brand once the public associates it with human trafficking.

And that’s just on the supply side. We also know that there’s a movement underway on the demand side. It’s beginning to hit home to a much broader audience that this crime touches us all. It’s in the coffee we drink. It’s the cotton that we wear every day. It’s in the technology that makes our smartphones work. It’s in the “sex industry” that is tolerated as just men blowing off steam. This is all of our problem. We all need to be part of the solution.

People coming to that conclusion in droves, and this isn’t just anecdotal. A year ago, my office provided seed money to an NGO to launch Slavery Footprint. It’s an online tool that allows individuals to see in startling detail the way this crime touches their lives. You take a ten-minute survey about your consumption habits, and the app shows you how many slaves it takes, per week, to sustain your lifestyle.

When we launched this app at the Clinton Global Initiative last fall, we hoped that a year in, 150,000 people would visit Slavery Footprint and take the survey. Within a few months, we had passed the two million user mark.

People are paying attention to this issue. They don’t want their lifestyles tainted by exploitation. They’re the reason a new law in California is going to make such a difference: the California Supply Chain Transparency Act. It went into effect in January. It says that any company that wants to do a lot of business in California—that means $100,000,000 a year—needs to disclose to the public what policies they have in effect to combat modern slavery. The policy could be: “Nothing.” So long as the company reports that and posts it on the Internet, it’s in compliance with the law. But compliance and effect are two different things. Once posted, that information cannot be taken back. Consumers, academics, governments, and yes, even plaintiffs’ lawyers will be looking at these filings.

Two million visitors to Slavery Footprint in just a few months. On the other hand, corporate policies that say “We don’t do anything about human trafficking.” I think you can see where this is going…

So what does a responsible company look like in practice?

Supply chain monitoring. Taking the necessary steps to know exactly where the raw materials for products are grown, gathered, mined, processed, manufactured. Responsible labor recruitment. Ensuring that the manpower fueling an enterprise is sourced fairly, and that workers aren’t charged exorbitant up-front frees that they’ll never be able to repay. Training for employees to recognize this crime and know how to take action if they see it. Codes of conduct that ensure these rules will be followed.

Just as an effective government response to trafficking is a victim-centered approach, corporations can have a victim-centered focus as well. Policies that aim to prevent this crime through supply chains and recruiting are critical, but there are 27 million people already victimized by this crime. The goal of a victim-centered government approach is to help these people restore their lives in the way they choose for themselves. They’re going to need jobs. They’re going to need training and education. They’re going to need an employment market that doesn’t discriminate against them or treat them differently because of their prior experiences or what they had to do to survive – a prostitution arrest on their record or having entered illegally. Government can only go so far.

And this isn’t just about labor trafficking, either. Policies that adopt a zero-tolerance approach to purchasing sex on company time or on the company dime help to curb the demand that fuels sex trafficking. Moral leadership in corporate boardrooms and on company floors will help accelerate the cultural shift that we need that say the days of “boys will be boys” are over. To say, when you’re on travel on our company’s behalf, you represent us, and you won’t be buying commercial sex. Not on our dime.

When we think about how the business community can incorporate survivors into their organizations, it is helpful to think about why victims fall prey to this: they are looking for a better life, good jobs, even the love or glamour that a pimp offers them. These aren’t weak victims, but were the people with enough gumption to try for a better life. TIP survivors can be great leaders, not just on public awareness and anti-trafficking work if they so choose, but as employees that stand out for their drive, their commitment to succeed. Time and again, I hear from employers of people who were victims in cases that I prosecuted, and time and again they tell me that these survivors are their best employees.

And finally, we need to think about why we do this.

150 years ago this September, a promise was made. A promise that slavery would no longer be legal. No longer be approved. The Emancipation Proclamation was not just words on paper. Those who heard it read out loud by the U.S. Cavalrymen who rode from plantation to plantation didn’t wait for the Proclamation to kick in on January 1st, or for the 13th Amendment to be promulgated two years later – they heard the promise, and took their freedom. Much as Frederick Douglass said “I prayed for my freedom for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” Like today’s victims of this crime, they were quick to take their own freedom once they knew it was possible. Once they knew that the promise of freedom had been made.

A generation later, when attorney Mary Grace Quackenbos went from Manhattan down to Florida to represent a group of workers that nobody else cared about, she wasn’t doing it to line her own pockets or make a name for herself. She was doing it because 41 years earlier a promise had been made.

A promise. That neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist. Not in 1865. Not then, in 1906. Not now, not ever.

Those words represent more than a moment in our history. They represent a sacred promise. Written in the blood of all who fought and died so that others may be free. Of all who lived and died in bondage.

We honor them by fighting to ensure the safety of our children. By bringing pimps and cruel bosses to justice. And when the Women’s Foundation brings us together to say that Minnesota girls – and boys and men and women – are not for sale, this is particularly appropriate. Because the promise that we must fulfill only became a reality because of what started here on another beautiful May day in the Twin Cities.

On May 10, 1861, over at Fort Snelling, the First Minnesota Regiment signed up for three years’ service. Two years later, 262 Minnesotans went out on the second day at Gettysburg. By the end of the day, only 47 stood. 83% casualties – the most in any US military unit in our history.

And the next day, the 47 survivors went out again. At the center of the line, they stopped Pickett’s charge. They prevented the breakthrough that would have won the war for the South and made President Lincoln’s promise just a historic footnote. And that day, almost half of the remaining men fell.

We owe a debt of remembrance to the 30 Minnesotans who walked away from that battle, and those who hallowed that ground and never came home. We owe them our commitment to end human trafficking today, in Minnesota, in the US, and around the world. Because, at our best, fighting slavery is who we are as a country.

As we near the 150th anniversary of Emancipation, we must remain as diligent as ever in our work. We must fulfill the promise for which those Minnesotans died. Because we all deserve to live in a world free from slavery.

Join us. Take up that terrible swift sword once again.

Let us live to make men free.

Thank you.

In 2010, CAST collaborated with Loyola Marymount University Animation Professor Jose Garcia Moreno and students at the Monterey Institute of Technology in Mexico to create a series of animated short films that raise awareness about human trafficking and modern day slavery.

In 2010, CAST collaborated with Loyola Marymount University Animation Professor Jose Garcia Moreno and students at the Monterey Institute of Technology in Mexico to create a series of animated short films that raise awareness about human trafficking and modern day slavery.

In 2010, CAST collaborated with Loyola Marymount University Animation Professor Jose Garcia Moreno and students at the Monterey Institute of Technology in Mexico to create a series of animated short films that raise awareness about human trafficking and modern day slavery.

In 2010, CAST collaborated with Loyola Marymount University Animation Professor Jose Garcia Moreno and students at the Monterey Institute of Technology in Mexico to create a series of animated short films that raise awareness about human trafficking and modern day slavery

GAATW Working Paper Series

MORE ‘TRAFFICKING’, LESS ‘TRAFFICKED’: Trafficking for Exploitation outside the sex sector in Europe
download PDF here >

SMUGGLING AND TRAFFICKING: RIGHTS AND INTERSECTIONS
download PDF here >
FAQ 1: Human Rights in Migrant Smuggling
FAQ 2: Smuggling and Trafficking Intersections

Read the factsheet for Senator Steinberg’s SB 1193 (Hotline Posting) >

Read More here>

Updated Form for Requesting Assistance for Foreign Trafficked Children
The Division of Anti-Trafficking in Persons (ATIP) within the HHS Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) modified the Request for Assistance for Child Victims of Human Trafficking form, found on the ATIP website at www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking. We encourage requesters to use this revised form.

FY 2010 Attorney General's Annual Report to Congress
USDOJ has published the Attorney General's Annual Report to Congress and Assessment of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons: Fiscal Year 2010. The report is available the following link: http://www.justice.gov/ag/annualreports/tr2010/agreporthumantrafficking2010.pdf

Blue Campaign Materials Available
In July 2010, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched the Blue Campaign to coordinate and enhance the Department’s anti-human trafficking efforts. The Blue Campaign leverages the resources of DHS to deter human trafficking by increasing awareness, protecting victims, and contributing to a robust criminal justice response. As part of the Blue Campaign, DHS has created a variety of materials including trainings, posters, brochures and indicator cards. To order these materials, go to the following link: http://www.dhs.gov/files/publications/blue-campaign-order-materials.shtm

Department of Labor Issues Final Rule on H-2B Program
The U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration and its Wage and Hour Division recently announced a final rule to improve the H-2B temporary nonagricultural worker program. The rule includes changes to several aspects of the program to strengthen worker protections and enforcement authorities. The H-2B program allows the entry of foreign workers into the United States on a temporary basis when qualified U.S. workers are not available, and the employment of those foreign workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers. The H-2B program is limited by law to a cap of 66,000 visas per year. The Department of Labor’s press release on the new rule, with links to fact sheets and other information, is available at http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/eta20120283.htm.

Freedom Network Conference
Freedom Network USA will host its tenth annual conference on human trafficking on March 21 -22, 2012 in New York, New York. The conference, “Beyond Rhetoric: Human Trafficking, Work from the Field,” is open to the public and includes sessions on legal services, trauma-informed care, and working with domestic minor victims. To register for the conference and to find out more information, please see the following website: www.freedomnetworkusa.org

Read Article Here>

Each year the Tony Blair Faith Foundation runs a blog series, "My Female Faith Hero," to highlight inspirational women of faith around UN International Women's Day. Tony Blair's reflection is part of this series. Read more faith hero stories at www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/myfemalefaithhero

One of the striking features of innovative interfaith work is the very high proportion of women and girls who are involved, despite the received image of mostly male religious leaders in dialogue. Of the 687 young people who applied to be one of our 34 Faiths Act Fellows, there were 487 women and 200 men. Of those selected, 25 are women, and 9 young men. Of the multi-faith volunteer groups that our last group of Faith Fellows set up to continue their community work after their work ended, around 60% in the UK were teenage girls and young women - a high proportion of them Muslim. This is, of course, typical of the willingness of women of faith to make new commitments, innovate, and take risks. The women who have inspired me most recently have shared these attributes: they are the Catholic Sisters who are dealing with sexual trafficking.

It would be hard to pick out any particular one. That would be the last thing they would want. They work together, across continents, in networks. They call sexual trafficking the new slavery. Some work at the UN, the equivalents of the William Wilberforces of old. But the work of most is much more at grassroots, demanding and sometimes dangerous.

Nuns work with the police, get girls out of brothels, brave local mafias. They seem a long way from the old Hollywood movie nuns with their wimples and distinctive habits, bobbing out of cloisters to smile at Bing Crosby in a clerical collar. It is hard to remember that, not too long ago, they had to seek permission from bishops to study gynaecology, and some were even advised by their Mother Superior on how to vote.

Their celibacy is chosen. They give themselves entirely to caring for trafficked women, protecting them in safe houses, educating about the dangers of "attractive" job offers overseas, helping them escape from vicious pimps, making safe their return to their families in the midst of threats. This does not make celibacy easy or less of a sacrifice. Their spirituality is not incidental either. Dealing with young traumatised women at the very beginning of their recovery from rape and sexual slavery - if they ever fully achieve it - requires that amalgam of compassion and street toughness that does not come from reading "how-to-be successful" books.

I think what I admire most is their ability to champion human dignity when human dignity is the very last thing that the people they are working with have experienced. It means swopping a cosy convent parlour for the rigours of the street and the pain of empathy with people who have experienced some of the worst that human beings can do to each other by way of degradation and enslavement.

And the second thing to inspire me is the way the Victorian community life of the celibate women's vocation dedicated to the poor has been able to reboot in response to a major modern problem, drawing on the riches of a traditional spiritual discipline and community structures. The net income from people trafficking is $34 billion going into the pockets of criminal gangs per annum. Trafficking is the dark underside of today's phase of globalisation. They are faith's response to it, networked, using the latest communications technology, willing to brave the disapproval of those who would like nuns back in the cloister, or in "safe" forms of religious life.

Above all, I see them as the exemplar of how religion can be a force for good in the world, champions of a networked Church coming to terms with the problems of the contemporary world. They are, in the words of Blessed Pope John applying "this sure and immutable teaching...elaborated and presented in a way which corresponds to the needs of our time". They are quite simply leaders.

it's an interesting and descriptive read of the Body Shop's activities around ethical sourcing principles and programs, including their ongoing efforts to source raw materials from farmer/worker collectives and their interest in moving beyond "ethical auditing" to more sustainable and higher standard practices that the Body Shop is now bringing to the much larger L'Oreal Group.

On pg. 51 you can read about some of the many successful outcomes of the Body Shop's partnership with ECPAT in various countries, including the Danish government's inclusion in their National Action Plan on Human Trafficking a provision to no longer treat victims of human trafficking as criminals.

Often thought of as a foreign problem, human trafficking is prevelant in Southern California

More than a hundred people protested human trafficking during an awareness event in Pomona Sunday.

About 15,000 to 17,000 men, women and children are trafficked into the U.S. every year and nearly 300,000 U.S. children are at risk of being swept into commercial sexual exploitation, according to estimates by the CIA and the U.S. Department of Justice respectively.

This figure stands in stark contrast to the perception that human trafficking is a foreign problem, one that does not enter U.S. borders.

"People in our society come across victims each and every day, they just don’t know it," said Kay Buck, executive director the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) in Los Angeles.

California is among the most vulnerable states for human trafficking, and Los Angeles is one of the top three points of entry for trafficking victims, according to CAST statistics.

Pomona "is sitting right in the middle, sandwiched between major areas of trafficking," said Pam Neighbour, director of the SHE Community of Pomona, citing the city’s position between San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties, areas that the FBI has deemed hubs of prostitution.

Street prostitution has become a significant problem in Pomona, where many of the prostitutes are young girls, Buck said. Pomona police have established a two-person team to investigate and help eradicate the growing issue.

"I think they’re on the right track," said Buck, whose organization works with law enforcement on trafficking cases. "They’re reaching out, gaining the trust of these victims and trying to provide access to (alternative ways to make a living)."

Public awareness was a major part of the day’s event. Neighbour encouraged people to educate themselves on the issue and learn the national human trafficking hotline number – 888-373-7888.

The impetus for bringing an awareness campaign to Southern California came after Neighbour visited Thailand and Cambodia, where human trafficking is a big problem. She said meeting the victims of human trafficking gave her a renewed sense of reality.

"I thought, 'Wow, this really happens,' and it could be my neighbor down the street or the young at-risk kids at the local school," she said.

When Neighbour returned from her trip to Thailand and Cambodia, she discovered several organizations in Pomona were dedicated to stopping human trafficking and sexual exploitation but there was lack of public awareness.

Human trafficking is defined as performing labor or commercial sex act through force, fraud or coercion, according to the Department of Justice. If the victim is under 18, those actions are considered human trafficking even if force, fraud or coercion are not present.

People tend to think of modern-day slavery in terms of sex slavery, Buck said. But forced labor slavery is a significant issue in the Inland Empire and Southern California.

The majority of human trafficking - about 80 percent - is classified as sex trafficking, according to the Department of Justice. About 10 percent is classified as labor trafficking.

Sunday’s event featured a screening of the film "FLESH: Bought and Sold in the US," a piece on the issue of human trafficking in the United States. Producers of the film were joined by representatives from the Pomona Police Department, California Against Slavery and Traffic Free Pomona for a panel interview.

This was the first time Mosaic Pomona hosted such an event in the area, but Neighbour said previous events in Chino and Chino Hills turned out hundreds of demonstrators.

Awareness campaigns and events dotted the Southland this weekend, with an anti-human trafficking awareness walk in San Bernardino County Saturday.

Emails were pouring in Sunday morning with interested parties curious about the event, Neighbour said, which was free and did not require an RSVP.

"It seems like once the word gets out and the public hears about it, the initial response is that 'I want to do something,'" she said.

“As January comes to an end, we must continue to maintain an open dialogue about the growing epidemic of human trafficking among men women and children in our country and abroad. Although this an extremely sensitive issue to address, we must not shy away when so many victims are enduring unimaginable circumstances around the world. As President Obama stated, human trafficking “is a crime that knows no borders”, so it is imperative that we work together with partners in America and abroad to put an end to these terrible crimes. In my District, I work closely with the Coalition Against Slavery & Trafficking (CAST), to identify ways to combat human trafficking through legislation in Congress. With the help of groups like CAST, I have introduced bills that seek to ensure child welfare agencies have the tools to understand the unique needs of child human trafficking victims and the resources to appropriately serve them; and to develop a public-private task force to prosecute online human traffickers.

“While we still have tremendous work to do, the first step to making human trafficking a priority is to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which will strengthen human trafficking prevention, protection, and prosecution programs. The typically bipartisan bill is currently locked in an irresponsible political battle. The safety and well-being of people is not a matter of party affiliation, but a basic right that should be a priority to Members of Congress. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to do what is right and make the appropriate investment in this legislation to protect human trafficking victims.”

Karen Bass represents the 33rd Congressional District, which includes Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Culver City and was the 67th Speaker of the California Assembly.

“Your activism is tipping the point of bringing slavery and human trafficking out of the darkness and lifting the veil for countless who cry every day because they are oppressed, who stand in corners of buildings because they have nowhere to sleep. This is a terrible, terrible situation, and your involvement will — and has — made a difference….

“Today there are over 12.3 million women, men, boys and girls around the world who are forced to work under threats of violence and isolated from anyone who can help them. Whether it’s in the manual labor of sweat shops in Beverly Hills or sexual slavery in Los Angeles County, where traffickers profit from racial and sexual abuse, this crime exists in staggering numbers, and we can no longer stand and allow that to continue to exist.”

Then Jerome Horton, chairman of the California State Board of Equalization, told the roughly 350 people gathered Jan. 7 in the Millennium Biltmore Hotel downtown for the third annual LA Freedom Walk and Fair, “Today, every step you take moves us closer to abolishing slavery in America once and for all.”

This year’s Saturday morning event, sponsored by the LA Metro Task Force on Human Trafficking and participating anti-slavery organizations, divided participants into a dozen groups. They walked through the garment and jewelry districts, engaging street vendors, shop workers and just people on the street with information about human trafficking, including how to recognize and report victims.

“We’re here participating in this walk today with many other religious congregations of Sisters because we want to put out awareness about this heinous crime — human trafficking, which is modern-day slavery,” Maria Elena Perales, justice coordinator of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, told The Tidings before the walk began.

The congregation supports a shelter in Orange County for trafficked women, offering mentoring and life skills to survivors of slavery. “You know, we hear about these things happening in other parts of the world like Asian and Africa, but we never think about it being here locally, especially in Orange County,” Perales pointed out. “But there’s a lot of slave labor taking place there — domestic workers, sex trafficking — especially in the enclosed communities.”

Nearby, six students from Ramona Convent Secondary School in Alhambra were also getting ready to walk. Heading the group were two juniors, Alexis Coria and Clarissa Figueroa, who started the anti-trafficking “Voices for Hope” organization at their all-girls’ high school this year.

“Definitely, we’re trying to make more awareness and to show that if we all come together we can do something about this horrible reality we call human trafficking,” Coria said. “And then it really impacts on women and children. Knowing that there’s someone my age out there not in a warm bed, not with a family being forced to do something — that’s just sickening, really upsets me. That’s why we’re so passionate.”

Figueroa was nodding. “We wanted to bring this to Ramona because we’re an all-girls’ school,” she said. “So it hits home for a lot of the girls. People just want to ignore it and make it go under the rug. But the reality is all teenagers should know about the signs because it could happen to you or someone that you love.”

Underground trade
Out walking on the sidewalks, some groups chanted, “Stop human trafficking!” “No more slavery!” or “End demand: Kids are not for sale!” Others held up placards saying, “Offense against human dignity — Human Trafficking” or “Enslaved domestic workers — Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

“We’re out here to educate, which is what women religious have always done, but to educate the public about this form of unregulated trade,” said Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Sister Jo’Ann De Quattro during a break from passing out fliers with information about human trafficking. “You know, we talk about ‘free trade,’ ‘fair trade.’ This is ‘unregulated trade,’ and it’s one of the biggest industries globally. Completely unregulated and underground — the trafficking of women and children, especially, but trafficking of all forms and exploitation.”

The seasoned social activist and former educator chuckled when she noted how this was her first demonstration that started and ended in a tony five-star hotel. But the member of WOW (the Wall of Women, which is part of CAST, the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking) described it as “great” and was especially pleased at the number of students who came out on a Saturday to participate.

“This is supposed to be the generation that only cares about themselves, and I refuse to believe that,” she said. “I think you just have to expose them to some injustice and they have an innate sense of righteousness. They’ll respond because they want to act — like today.”

Another LA Freedom Walker, Religious Sister of Charity Kathy Bryant, observed that women religious and congregations have always read the “sign of the times” to look out for social as well as spiritual needs that aren’t being addressed. She noted that Sisters were among the first groups to take care of and house orphans. They were also on the front lines when the AIDS/HIV epidemic broke out in the 1970s and ’80s around the world.

“Now I think the issue is human trafficking, with most religious congregations having made a commitment through their chapters to focus on it,” said Sister Bryant. “Internationally, some convents became safe houses. Sisters are on the front lines of creating awareness, of getting people to engage with the anti-slavery nonprofits like CAST and working collaboratively. So we’re doing a lot of interfaith work on this, which is exciting.” Connie McGhee was a block behind her walking group because the principal of Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Los Angeles had stopped to talk with two men at a street corner. When she informed them that human trafficking was currently the second most lucrative business in the world, one replied: “I had no idea.” “It’s amazing to me how many people have no idea,” McGhee said. “You know, at our Southern California Partners for Global Justice meetings we always talk about making the general population aware. And we talk about going into colleges and high schools as well. But I think our seventh- and eighth-graders also need to know about human trafficking. They need to be aware for no other reason than to protect themselves.”

Elizabeth Alvarez readily agreed. She and her husband, Marcello Jr., were out walking with their three children — Isabella, 13, Marcello III, 11, and Samantha Bernadette, 7, who attend Resurrection School in East L.A. “I think it’s important that I’m here with my husband and children because the awareness needs to start somewhere,” the 34-year-old mother said. “And when somebody asks my kids ‘What did you do this walk for?’ they can tell them.

“We’re talking not only about children from around the world and in the United States, but from our neighborhoods in East L.A. It’s an area that has a lot of poverty, and people are ready to take advantage of that. But I raised my children to be very outspoken and stand up for themselves and for other people. And I want them not only to stop the bullies here at home but there’s bullies around the world. And that’s why we’re here.”

Survivors’ stories
After the walkers returned to the Millennium Biltmore Hotel before noon, Kay Buck, executive director of CAST, briefly addressed them. She also reported that while many shopkeepers and pedestrians acknowledged that human trafficking happened in other countries, they often remarked how it surely didn’t occur in the United States, California and Los Angeles today.

Buck countered this naive view with U.S. State Department statistics that every year 15,000 to 18,000 men, women and children are being trafficked into the nation. “And Los Angeles is well known as being one of the top three points of entry,” she declared. “So just imagine how many modern-day slaves are actually here right in our backyard?”

Then, to a hushed audience, two “survivors” spoke.

Angela Guanzon, 34, told how she was brought to Southern California from the Philippines in 2005 by a Filipino woman who ran two assisted-living facilities in Long Beach. Not long after arriving, the trafficker said she owed her $12,000 for the trip and that it would take 10 years of work to pay off the debt. She was also warned not to talk to anybody outside the facilities or she would be arrested and send back home. Guanzon found herself working 18-hour days, with only the promise of a day off that never came. She slept in hallways or on a couch, but often had to get up in the middle of the night to attend to elderly patients. “I was miserable, but I didn’t have a choice,” she explained. “Either I’m going to be in jail or with her.”

After about 2 ½ years, a retired neighbor noticing that Guanzon and the other workers hardly ever left the premises contacted the police. They intervened and referred her to the LA Metro Task Force on Human Trafficking, who put her in contact with CAST. The anti-slavery organization provided her with support, education and housing. Today, she’s a certified nursing assistant working in Santa Monica.

“I know that there are more victims like me out there,” Guanzon warned. “So you need to be vigilant and aware of your surroundings.” D’Lita Miller declared that she was also a survivor of human trafficking — specifically, sex trafficking. A runaway at 14 from Compton, the 37-year-old woman said that she was “brainwashed” into thinking that her family would no longer help her and the only way she could survive was by selling herself. At 15 she had her first child; four more were to follow over the years.

She tried to break away, even taking classes at a city college, but always relapsed as a struggling single mom. “One thing that I’ve realized as a survivor is that even though we have freedom from trafficking our minds aren’t set free yet,” Miller observed. “So it took me many years, and I’m still struggling for my mind to be set free.”

What finally helped her change, ironically, was finding out last year that her own 16-year-old daughter was involved in the same kind of local sex trafficking as she had been dragged into. Since then she’s devoted her life through an anti-slavery organization, “Saving Innocence,” to advocate against sex trafficking.

“I understand that human trafficking is a worldwide situation,” Miller said. “However, I would like to stand here today and let you know that it is really becoming very common in our streets. In the streets of Compton, San Pedro, Hollywood Boulevard, the San Fernando Valley, the new trafficking game is being run by gang members and drug dealers. And they are recruiting our children as young as middle school.”

To contact CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking), visit www.CASTLA.org or call the intake line: (888) 539-2373. The National Human Trafficking Hotline is (888) 3737.888.

Amphora by Emily C is a beautiful, patent pending necklace that lets you quickly attach your wedding, engagement, or other cherished rings, without unclasping the chain. Perfect for any woman who treasures her ring and doesn't want to lose it, but knows that wearing it constantly leads to a dirty diamond and a scratched band. Visit emilyc.com to see how it works (it's not magic but it looks like it!).

Emily C is having a fundraiser through Valentine's Day to benefit CAST. To buy your necklace and support CAST, click on the "Shop" tab at emilyc.com, and click on the "Buy your Amphora on amazon.com" button at the bottom of the page. During checkout, enter "CASTLA12" in the promotion box, and you'll receive 15% off your purchase (as well as free shipping!). Most importantly, Emily C will donate an additional 15% of the full purchase price to the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. The promotion is valid through February 14, 2012.

By Rani Hong, Huffington Post

Every day, in every nation on the planet, children are sold and bonded into slavery. Thousands of children. I know, I was one of them.

When I was seven years old, a woman approached my family promising to give me a good education and a better life. My mother agreed because, she was told, she could visit me on a regular basis close to our home. But instead of giving me a better life, this well-respected woman in our community turned around and sold me to a man in a bordering state.

I was taken from my family in India to a place I didn't know. A place with strange people and a strange language. My trafficker, Paul, was in the business of children. He bought and sold us, exploiting our vulnerability and innocence, forcing us to work as maids, servants, and in brick and cement factories. He ran an "orphanage" that was registered with the government as a humanitarian charity, but which instead served as a barracks for children he trafficked, including me.

I remember crying for my mother. Paul told me that I never would see her again. "She is dead," he said.

My home, my identity, and, most importantly, my dreams and aspirations were lost. The world around me was shattered into pieces. My small body endured beatings and torture. Day in and day out, in that poverty stricken village in Southern India, I cried for someone to rescue me. Despite all of my tears, no one answered my cry.

By the time I was eight, my physical condition and emotional state were dire. I was near death. No longer of any value to Paul, he sold me into illegal adoption. I was adopted by an American woman who thought she was getting a legitimately orphaned girl. She brought me to live with her in Washington, where I had all the privileges of American life. Through her love, I began to find stability, healing, and a sense of personal freedom.

Today, at least 27 million men, women, and children are enslaved across the globe --m ore than at any time in history. Modern-day slavery and human trafficking manifest themselves in many forms, from forced labor to sex trafficking, but each is alike in that it strips a person of their fundamental and inalienable right to human freedom. Sometimes hidden in the dark corners of our globalized world and at other times occurring in plain sight, modern-day slavery and human trafficking are legal nowhere but present in every country across the globe.

Twenty-one years after being trafficked, I traveled back to India. There, I saw my birth mother in a hotel for the first time since we were forced apart. I listened to her tell the story of losing a child. I heard her pain and devastation. And I resolved to dedicate my life to stopping the modern-day slave trade.

President Barack Obama has proclaimed January as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. It provides all of us with an opportunity to look within and beyond our own lives. But the issue of human trafficking is massive in scope and often overwhelming to consider. How can one person possibly impact such an immense, seemingly intractable global problem? You can start by becoming educated about the issue -- including in your own community. Next, be willing to say something. Ask Congress to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Fight for anti-trafficking legislation in your state. And simply be willing to stand up and use your voice to say that slavery is wrong. If thousands of voices rise up the same way, they will surely be loud enough to end this tragedy in our time.

By David Jackson, USA TODAY

President Obama is declaring January to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

"We stand with all those who are held in compelled service," Obama wrote in a proclamation issued today. "We recognize the people, organizations and government entities that are working to combat human trafficking; and we recommit to bringing an end to this inexcusable human rights abuse."

Obama wrote that "trafficking networks operate both domestically and trans-nationally, and although abuses disproportionally affect women and girls, the victims of this ongoing global tragedy are men, women and children of all ages."

In declaring National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, Obama noted that Jan. 1 is the 148th anniversary of the effective date of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Obama's full proclamation:

Nearly a century and a half ago, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation -- a document that reaffirmed the noble goals of equality and freedom for all that lie at the heart of what it means to live in America.

In the years since, we have tirelessly pursued the realization and protection of these essential principles. Yet, despite our successes, thousands of individuals living in the United States and still more abroad suffer in silence under the intolerable yoke of modern slavery.

During National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we stand with all those who are held in compelled service; we recognize the people, organizations and government entities that are working to combat human trafficking; and we recommit to bringing an end to this inexcusable human rights abuse.

Human trafficking endangers the lives of millions of people around the world, and it is a crime that knows no borders.

Trafficking networks operate both domestically and transnationally, and although abuses disproportionally affect women and girls, the victims of this ongoing global tragedy are men, women and children of all ages.

Around the world, we are monitoring the progress of governments in combating trafficking while supporting programs aimed at its eradication. From forced labor and debt bondage to forced commercial sexual exploitation and involuntary domestic servitude, human trafficking leaves no country untouched.

With this knowledge, we rededicate ourselves to forging robust international partnerships that strengthen global anti-trafficking efforts, and to confronting traffickers here at home.

My administration continues to implement our comprehensive strategy to combat human trafficking in America.

By coordinating our response across federal agencies, we are working to protect victims of human trafficking with effective services and support, prosecute traffickers through consistent enforcement, and prevent human rights abuses by furthering public awareness and addressing the root causes of modern slavery.

The steadfast defense of human rights is an essential part of our national identity, and as long as individuals suffer the violence of slavery and human trafficking, we must continue the fight.

With the start of each year, we commemorate the anniversaries of the Emancipation Proclamation, which became effective on January 1, 1863, and the 13th Amendment to abolish slavery, which was signed by President Abraham Lincoln and submitted to the States for ratification on February 1, 1865.

These documents stand as testaments to the gains we have made in pursuit of freedom and justice for all, and they remind us of the work that remains to be done.

This month, I urge all Americans to educate themselves about all forms of modern slavery and the signs and consequences of human trafficking. Together, and in cooperation with our partners around the world, we can work to end this terrible injustice and protect the rights to life and liberty entrusted to us by our forebears and owed to our children.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 2012 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, culminating in the annual celebration of National Freedom Day on February 1.

I call upon the people of the United States to recognize the vital role we can play in ending modern slavery and to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities.

Noel Randewich
Reuters

12:15 p.m. CST, December 30, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A new California law will force retailers and manufacturers to disclose from 2012 how they guard against slavery and human trafficking throughout their supply chains, ratcheting up scrutiny over some of the largest U.S. corporations.

From January 1, about 3,200 major companies doing business or based in California, a list that includes Apple Inc and Gap Inc, will be required to disclose steps they take, if any, to ensure their suppliers and partners do not use forced labor.

Companies risk getting sued by the state attorney general if they flout that law. But experts say the real pressure will come from the court of public opinion: consumers who care about ethical working conditions and take an interest in how their favorite brands get made.

Major U.S. consumer companies that have already come under fire include Apple. A group of suicides at supplier Foxconn, which makes the iconic iPhone, raised questions about working conditions at plants in southern China.

By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times
December 16, 2011

A decade ago, Shyima Hall was smuggled into the United States as a 10-year-old slave, forced to cook and clean inside the home of a wealthy Irvine family and, at night, sleep on a squalid mattress in a windowless garage.

On Thursday, the Egyptian-born 22-year-old stood before a federal judge in Montebello with nearly 900 others and was sworn in as naturalized U.S. citizen. The ceremony capped a hard-scrabble journey that began with Hall's rescue, wound through the foster care system and ended with her living on her own, working, and with ambitions to become a federal agent.

"I went through something terrible, but right now I'm in a great place," Hall said after Thursday's citizenship ceremony at the Quiet Cannon Country Club. "I can't imagine anything greater than having my own life."

Hall's Egyptian parents sold her into slavery when she was 8 for $30 a month, according to authorities. The Cairo couple who bought her moved to Irvine two years later, smuggling Hall into the U.S. where she toiled for them and their five children until she was 13.

Hall said she worked 16 hour days, scrubbing floors, cooking meals and cleaning house, and was rarely allowed outside the spacious home. She was forced to wash her own clothes in a bucket and was forbidden from going to school. She never visited a doctor or dentist and didn't speak a word of English.

Her captors, Abdel Nasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim and his former wife, Amal Ahmed Ewis-abd Motelib, berated her and occasionally slapped her around, authorities said.

"I didn't know anything about what America was about. My only hope was to go back home and live a normal life with my family, my brothers and sisters,'' she said. "That's all I wanted."

In 2002, acting on a tip from a concerned neighbor, child welfare authorities rescued her from the house. Her case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leading to the prosecution, federal imprisonment and, later, deportation of Ibrahim and Motelib.

Hall formed a tight bond with one of the lead federal agents, Mark Abend of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations, who has served as a friend and mentor. He was at Hall's citizenship ceremony Thursday.

"I'm really proud of her. Think of everything she's been through. Being sold into slavery at an early age. Coming over here. Not having a family," Abend said. "The resiliency she has is just amazing. The fortitude. Not falling apart. Not being a destroyed soul."

Abend remembers interviewing Hall, then 13, with the help of an Arabic interpreter for the first time when she was being cared for at the Orangewood Children's Home in Orange. Her captors told her to never speak to police, that officers would beat her. She stayed tight-lipped until she was allowed to call her parents in Egypt, and her father ordered her to go back with her captors.

"That's when I saw a spark," Abend said. "She stood up to her dad. She said, 'No! This is not right. What they did to me was not right. You sold me into slavery.'"

At 13, Hall decided that she wanted to stay in the U.S. She hasn't returned to Egypt or seen her family.

In recent years, Hall has spoken to groups across the country about combating human trafficking. She's briefed ICE agents about the emotional and physical trauma victims face.

In 2010-11, federal immigration officials launched 651 investigations into human trafficking, arresting 300 people. According to the U.S. State Department, there are more than 12 million people entrapped in some form of slavery worldwide.

Hall said her dream now is to become a federal agent for ICE to help crack down on human trafficking and free the enslaved.

"That's my top goal," Hall said. "I've been through it. I know I can help."

Los Angeles immigration attorney Angelo Paparelli, who represented Hall pro bono, said that her citizenship application was filed under a special provision for juvenile immigrants and that county officials from the outset supported her decision to stay in the U.S.

"She has literally gone through a living hell, and now she wants to give back," said Paparelli, of the national law firm Seyfarth Shaw. "She's there to give other people courage."

For now, Hall is living in Beaumont in Riverside County and working at the Cabazon outlets as a store supervisor. She's deciding whether to go back to college to finish a degree or to apply for the local police force.

"I'm very excited. I can start my career now," she said. "I can start my life."

Since I have been volunteering for CAST, it has been encouraging this holiday season to have two particular church groups, one in central Texas and the other in the Los Angeles area, who have felt inspired to focus their collective giving in December on survivors of human trafficking. Through our outreach, representatives from each church contacted CAST and were given a needs-list of items for survivors living on their own and in the CAST shelter.

The list comprised things as inexpensive and simple as toiletries to larger items such as mattresses and furniture. Each church started the campaign the first Sunday of December, and the response has been so great in the first few weeks that pledges for most of the items have been made! The amazing thing about online-ordering is that people as far away as Texas can give tangible items such as jackets, cookware, and even mattresses to real people who continue to struggle to rebuild their lives after their nightmare. Many youth from the Los Angeles area church are getting involved in fund-raising by making jewelry to sell to their friends and family. It has been a complete and holistic effort involving all age-groups in the church and the benefits to the survivors are exponentially greater than the financial cost of the donated items. These stories only highlight a few ways that I have seen people help survivors of trafficking this holiday season.

As a CAST volunteer, I know that every member of the CAST team is continually grateful for the individual and collective efforts made on behalf of the survivors. We are also encouraged by the countless pledges made that will support the ongoing efforts of CAST to advocate for survivors and to provide them with critical legal and social services. I’m both proud and thankful of my community for helping CAST and making a difference in the lives of the survivors they serve.

For more information please visit www.castla.org. To donate, please contact us at info@castla.org or visit our webpage where you can make a secure online donation. Thank you, and may you all have a wonderful holiday season!

Stephanie, CAST Volunteer

Chinese police have busted two huge child trafficking rings that spanned 10 provinces, arresting more than 600 suspects and rescuing 178 children, the government said Wednesday.

Child abductions and trafficking are rife in China, despite repeated police crackdowns -- a problem that many experts blame on the nation's strict "one-child" policy and lax regulations on adoption.

The public security ministry said in a statement that police in the southwestern province of Sichuan had chanced on clues that a child trafficking gang was operating there when dealing with a traffic accident in May.

Then in August, police in the southeastern province of Fujian discovered the existence of another gang involved in widespread child trafficking.

After a long period of evidence-gathering, more than 5,000 police officers from 10 different provinces across China launched a joint offensive on November 30, arresting 608 suspects.

They rescued 178 children, who have now been placed in welfare agencies, in what the statement called "the biggest victory yet for anti-trafficking" operations.

It did not say how old the children were, or whether they had been reunited with their parents.

Lax adoption rules for childless couples in China have led to a thriving underground market for kidnapping, buying and selling children.

Many academics also blame the problem on the nation's strict "one-child" policy, which has put a premium on baby boys, as many families want a male heir.

As such, some parents who are unable to have a son or want a second child opt to buy one, and baby girls are also sometimes sold on to traffickers.

Authorities have repeatedly launched crackdowns on trafficking, but scandals keep emerging.

Police said in July they had freed 89 children in a crackdown on trafficking launched this year, arresting 369 people in the operation.

In November, police in the eastern province of Shandong also broke up a human trafficking gang that bought babies from poor families and sold them on for $8,000.

And in 2007, in a scandal that shocked the nation, authorities found that thousands of people had been forced into slave labour in brickyards and mines across the nation.

Read More >

This document provides guidance for—and strongly encourages—companies to go beyond minimum compliance with The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act (SB 657) by implementing a comprehensive human rights framework. Access the full guide here.

Read More>

Details here >

Action Steps You Can Take Today!

You can help end modern-day slavery in our lifetime—Call or email your Representative today and ask them to Co-sponsor H.R. 2830 and move quickly to pass this bill.

It’s easy to find your Representative's contact information at the top right corner of the House's website: http://www.house.gov/representatives/

1) Either leave a voice message or simply talk to the receptionist:

“My name is ___ and I live at ______________ (your address). I'm calling to ask the Representative to co-sponsor H.R.2830, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Please take action to pass this bill quickly as the Act expires on September 30.

2) Send an email to your Representative:

Dear Representative,

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act was signed into law in 2000 and it is currently up for reauthorization. I write today to urge you to co-sponsor this crucial bi-partisan legislation. The 2011 TVPRA (H.R. 2830), as introduced by the House, makes needed improvements that will better assist human trafficking victims, prosecutors and law enforcement, including important measures to prevent human trafficking by halting the abuses of foreign labor recruiters.

The TVPRA improves U.S. programs that combat human trafficking and slavery around the world and within our borders. I strongly urge you to co-sponsor the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011 and move quickly to pass this legislation.

Sincerely,
Your Name

CAST thanks you for taking action today!

Read the Univision article here (spanish) >

Read the Full Article >

A new article, released by the Health and Human Rights Journal, talks about effectively identifying and helping victims if they enter the health sector.

Read the Article Here >

In 2000, CAST and coalition partners around the country successfully advocated for the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA). This groundbreaking legislation increased the U.S. Government’s efforts to protect victims, authorized the government to strengthen efforts to prosecute traffickers and allowed for increased prevention measures. It funds some of CAST’s most vital programs for victims of trafficking including comprehensive case management, shelter and legal services.

Since the original passage the bill has been reauthorized three times (2003, 2005, 2008). On June 29, 2011 with bi-partisan support, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (S.1301) was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senators Leahy (VT), Brown (MA), Kerry (MA), Boxer (CA), Cardin (MD), and Wyden (OR). Now it is time to urge members of the Senate to support the reauthorization, and we need your help to do this!

Action Steps You Can Take Today!

You can help end modern-day slavery in our lifetime—Call or email your Senator today!

It’s easy to find your Senators’ contact information at the top right corner of the Senate’s website: http://www.senate.gov/

1) Either leave a voice message or simply talk to the receptionist:

“My name is ___ and I live in ______________ (your state). I'm calling to ask the senator to co-sponsor S.1301, the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. I also would like the senator to support strengthening the Act by increasing provisions that halt abuses by foreign labor recruiters.

2) Send an email to your Senator:

Dear Senator,

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act was signed into law in 2000 and it is currently up for reauthorization. I write today to urge you to co-sponsor this crucial bi-partisan legislation. The 2011 TVPRA (S.1301), as introduced by the Senate, makes needed improvements that will better assist human trafficking victims, prosecutors and law enforcement. However it could do more. I urge you to increase measures to prevent human trafficking by including provisions to halt the abuse of foreign labor recruiters in the TVPRA.

The TVPRA would sustain and improve U.S. programs that combat human trafficking and slavery around the world and within our borders. I strongly urge you to co-sponsor the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2011.

Sincerely,
Your Name

CAST thanks you for taking action today!

Download the Trafficking Victims Proctection Act (TVPRA) of 2011

Read more here.

Federal Agency Says Labor Contractor and Eight Farms Discriminated Against Hundreds of Thai Farm Workers Trafficked into Hawaii, Washington

LOS ANGELES—In its largest human trafficking case in agriculture to date, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today announced that it filed lawsuits in Hawaii and Washington against Global Horizons Inc., a Beverly Hills-based farm labor contractor, and eight farms. The EEOC contends that Global Horizons engaged in a pattern or practice of national origin and race discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, when it trafficked over 200 Thai male victims to farms in Hawaii and Washington where they were subjected to severe abuse. Hundreds of additional potential claimants and witnesses are expected, according to the EEOC.

The EEOC asserts that between 2003 and 2007, Global Horizons enticed Thai male nationals into working at the farms with the false promises of steady, high-paying agricultural jobs along with temporary visas allowing them to live and work in the U.S. legally. The opportunity came at a price: high recruitment fees creating an insurmountable debt for the Thai workers. When they reached the U.S., Global Horizons confiscated the workers’ passports and threatened deportation if they complained, which set the tone for the abuses to come.

The Thai workers were assigned to work at six farms in Hawaii (Captain Cook Coffee Company, Del Monte Fresh Produce, Kauai Coffee Company, Kelena Farms, MacFarms of Hawaii, and Maui Pineapple Farms) and two farms in Washington (Green Acre Farms and Valley Fruit Orchards), harvesting a variety of items from pineapples to coffee beans. The EEOC asserts that the farms not only ignored abuses, but also participated in the obvious mistreatment, intimidation, harassment, and unequal pay of the Thai workers.

At some farms, the Thai workers were forced to live in dilapidated housing infested with rats and insects, with dozens sleeping in the same room, many with no beds. They were forbidden from leaving the premises. On the job, they endured screaming, threats and physical assaults on the part of supervisors, and were isolated from non-Thai farm workers who appeared to be working under more tolerable conditions, says the EEOC. Bound by their debts, stripped of their identification and silenced by the perpetrators, the Thai workers had little recourse until the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles brought victims to the EEOC to file charges of discrimination.

The EEOC filed its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii (EEOC v. Global Horizons, Inc. d/b/a Global Horizons Manpower, Inc., Captain Cook Coffee Company, Ltd. et al. Case No. CV-11-00257-DAE-RLP) and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington (EEOC v. Global Horizons, Inc. d/b/a Global Horizons Manpower, Inc., Green Acre Farms, Inc. et al, Case No. 2:11-cv-03045-EFS), after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement. The EEOC’s suit argues that the alleged conduct constitutes retaliation, national origin and race discrimination which violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC seeks back pay, compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of the victims, as well as injunctive relief intended to prevent further abuses at the companies and farms.

“Human trafficking is one of the most insidious forms of discrimination,” said Anna Park, regional attorney for the EEOC’s Los Angeles District Office. “The EEOC is committed to holding employers accountable for benefiting from the modern day enslavement of workers from other countries.”

Olophius Perry, district director for the EEOC’s Los Angeles District Office, added, “Foreign workers should be treated as equals when working in the U.S., not as second class citizens. All workers – foreign and U.S. – are protected under the law and have the right to complain of such employment abuses which poison the moral fabric of our society.”

In a related development, the EEOC’s Birmingham District Office filed another labor trafficking case today against Signal International LLC. In that suit the EEOC contends that Signal International discriminated against approximately 500 male Indian workers who were trafficked to work as welders, pipefitters and ship-fitters in Mississippi and Texas. These lawsuits follow a Commission meeting held on Jan. 19, 2011, examining the problem of human trafficking in employment.

The EEOC is the federal agency that enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimina¬tion. Further information about the EEOC is available on the agency’s web site at www.eeoc.gov.

The 13th Annual From Slavery to Freedom Gala is a celebration of resilience, freedom and hope, honoring those who have shown extraordinary leadership in protecting and empowering survivors of modern day slavery and creating social change that will put an end to this human rights violation.

This event will put a much needed spotlight on CAST model programs that have literally given trafficking survivors a second chance at life and our vision of social entrepreneurship, targeting slavery and trafficking from unexpected angles and aligning ourselves strategically with those who share this goal.

CAST is proud to announce this year’s Honorary Event Chairs – Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, founders of the U.S. based nonprofit organization DNA (The Demi and Ashton Foundation). Believing that freedom is a basic human right, DNA was established to raise awareness of child sex slavery, change cultural stereotypes that facilitate this horrific problem, and rehabilitate victims.

CAST and DNA have collaborated on several fronts and continue together to find ways to end the demand for human slavery.

The mission of CAST (Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking) is to assist persons trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and slavery-like practices and to work toward ending all instances of such human rights violations.

To learn about event sponsorship opportunities, please contact:

Kay Buck, Executive Director, at: kay@castla.org

Purchase Tickets >   |   Donate >

 CAST and partners lead local efforts to raise awareness during National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Month

For a second year, President Obama has once again proclaimed the month of January 2011 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. In the proclaimation's opening paragraph, President Obama states:

" Our Nation was founded on the enduring principles of equality and freedom for all. As Americans, it is our solemn responsibility to honor and uphold this legacy. Yet, around the world and even within the United States, victims of modern slavery are deprived of the most basic right of freedom. During National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we rededicate ourselves to preventing and ending human trafficking, and we recognize all who continue to fight this serious human rights violation."

 CAST was founded in 1998 as the first organization in the United States to dedicated to exclusively address human trafficking. Born out of the infamous El Monte sweatshop case, in which 72 Thai garment workers were enslaved in a suburban sweatshop for up to 8 years, CAST now coordinates with multiple agencies and organizations to effectively provide direct services and advocacy for survivors of human trafficking.

 "It is important that we continue to work as a broad coalition to increase awareness at the community level that human trafficking and slavery-like practices are occuring right here in our own backyard. CAST partners with community based organizations across the country to help respond to cases of human trafficking and to help educate communities about how to identify it and what their rights are." states Kay Buck, Executive Director at CAST.  CAST coordinates a coalition called the Key-2- Freedom Alliance, made up of multi-ethnic community based and faith based organizations across Los Angeles and surrounding counties.  CAST is also a founding member of the Los Angeles Metro Task Force on Human Trafficking, a multi-agency consortium created to address the problem of human trafficking in the greater Los Angeles area.

 In partnership with the Key 2 Freedom Alliance and the LA Metro Task Force, CAST is organizing a Freedom Walk on January 11th,  to  commemorate National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. The walk will begin at 10am, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles, and will end at historic Olvera Street, where a Freedom Fair, complete with information booths, presentations and activities will be held from 11-2pm.

 2011 National Human Trafficking Awareness Day Flyer.pdf

The attached flyer includes more information about the activities and how to sign up.  CAST encourages everyone to participate in raising awareness this month by hosting events, screening a film, and utilizing social media platforms to help educate your friends and community about the issue. For resources and information about human trafficking, please visit CAST's website at www.castla.org .  Information on a number of events throughout the month can be found CAST's calendar page.

September 30, 2010                                                                

GOVERNOR SCHWARZENEGGER SIGNS SUPPLY CHAIN LEGISLATION TO END THE DEMAND FOR SLAVE MADE GOODS IN CALIFORNIA

ASSET and CAST co-sponsor Senate Bill 657by Senator Darrell Steinberg, now signed by the Governor, to give consumers a tool to purchase slave-free products        

Governor Schwarzenegger announced today that he has signed Senate Bill 657  by Senator Darrel Steinberg and co-sponsored by the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) and the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking (ASSET) to help eliminate the existence of products sold in California that have been made with slave labor throughout any point in their supply chain.  SB 657- better known as the California Supply Chain Transparency Act- gives consumers a tool to get basic information about a company’s efforts to eradicate slave labor and human trafficking from its supply chain by asking large manufacturers and retailers with more than $100 million in gross receipts annually in California to disclose their voluntary efforts to eradicate slavery in their own supply chains.

“Human trafficking is a terrible crime that goes against basic human rights and everything our country stands for,” said Governor Schwarzenegger.  “I am proud that in California, we have enacted some of the toughest laws to punish human traffickers and protect their victims.  This legislation will increase transparency, allow consumers to make better, more informed choices and motivate businesses to ensure humane practices throughout the supply chain.”

CAST’s Executive Director Kay Buck states, “As co-sponsors of SB657 with ASSET and the Consumer Federation of California, we applaud Governor Schwarzenegger for his recognition that there is never a time to turn our back on freedom. As the 10th largest economy in the world, California businesses and consumers alike are uniquely positioned to bring about solutions to decrease and eradicate child and forced labor in supply chains. The California Supply Chain Transparency Act is a significant step to what we hope will be one of many innovative solutions we create in collaboration with the business community and consumers to end slavery- this time for good.”

Flor Molina, a survivor of human trafficking member of CAST’s Survivor Advisory Caucus, comprised of over twenty survivors of trafficking who are now activists in the fight against slavery, stated “During my enslavement in Los Angeles I sewed department stores’ labels on clothes sold in California.  I know this law will help stop the demand for slave made goods.  On behalf of myself, the CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus and all other victims of slavery I want to thank Governor Scharzenegger for signing this bill.”

The California Supply Chain Transparency Act does not attempt to punish companies, but rather provide consumers and businesses alike to better know how products are made.  By providing a mechanism for concerned consumers to be able to compare company efforts on forced labor and human trafficking in their “supply chains”, people can make more informed decisions to spend their hard-earned dollars with the more responsible company.

“With better transparency, Californians can now ensure they do not promote and sanction these heinous crimes through the purchase of everyday items that have tainted supply chains,” Steinberg said.  “This is a simple measure that has the potential to change behavior in a way that will save lives and encourage humane working conditions not just here in California but throughout the world.” 

"As Founder and President of the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking (ASSET), a chief organizational sponsor of the California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 (SB657), I am deeply grateful to Senator Steinberg for introducing this bill, and to Governor Schwarzenegger for signing this important piece of legislation.  By signing the bill, the Governor has confirmed that California will continue to lead the country in combating slavery and human trafficking.  Business has a crucial role to play in ensuring that slave labor and human trafficking do not infect the products we buy.  The California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010 recognizes the role that business can play, and also enables consumers and investors to make informed purchasing and investment decisions." 

The California Supply Chain Transparency Act is expected to help victims of forced labor and human trafficking; consumers wanting to make responsible purchasing choices; investors wanting to make responsible decisions; companies who are acting responsibly by helping them achieve a more level playing field with those who aren’t; and of course, the State of California as a leader in the fight against slavery.

ABOUT THE COALITION TO ABOLISH SLAVERY AND TRAFFICKING:

CAST is the first and only organization in the country dedicated exclusively to assisting trafficked persons. CAST provides direct services to meet the immediate food, shelter, medical and legal needs of trafficked persons.  CAST also conducts advocacy and training to law enforcement, service providers, policymakers and the general public to improve survivors’ access to justice. Since its establishment in 1998, CAST, the largest service provider in the country, has worked with hundreds of survivors of trafficking and trained over 10,000 service providers and law enforcement.  In Spring of 2004, CAST opened the first shelter in the country for survivors of trafficking.  On January 11, 2010, International Human Trafficking Awareness Day, CAST will launch a month long public awareness campaign to let communities know what they can do to fight human trafficking. Visit www.castla.org for a calendar of events.

July 19, 2010. The International Visitors Council of Los Angeles (IVCLA) has designated CAST as its 2010 recipient of the Outstanding Resources Award.

IVCLA’s Executive Director Janet Elliott, states, “CAST has been an outstanding resource for many of the international emerging leaders IVCLA provides programming for each year.”

IVCLA works to initiate dialogue between emerging leaders from around the world and Los Angeles area businesses and non-profits. In the past eighteen months, CAST has met with delegates, including government employees, NGO representatives, attorneys, police officers, and social workers, from fourteen countries across north Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

Elliott says, “CAST’s dedication to identifying trafficking survivors, mobilizing the community to identify and advocate against the problem, and providing direct service to victims is outstanding. [CAST’s] willingness to meet and discuss [its] work with professionals from around the world who are also fighting against trafficking exemplifies the Citizens Diploma principles of IVCLA.”

The award will be presented to CAST at IVCLA’s Citizen Diplomacy Celebration, October 21, 2010, at the Western Justice Center in Pasadena.

“CAST is honored to be considered IVCLA’s 2010 Outstanding Resource,” says CAST Executive Director Kay Buck. “The award exemplifies the necessity of international cooperation and conversation in combating trafficking and slavery in all its forms, and providing services to survivors of these heinous crimes. Only when we lock arms around the world, as concerned private citizens, communities, businesses, and governments, can we end slavery—this time for good.”

Since its inception in 1998, CAST has worked with individuals and groups across Los Angeles, the nation, and the world, to combat slavery and rescue survivors. In recent years, CAST has broadened its coalition into Mexico, where it works with local government and non-government organizations to increase awareness and prevention services. CAST’s co-sponsored state senate bill, SB 657, which seeks to eliminate products tainted by slavery from California’s supply chains, has passed the California Assembly Judiciary Committee, and will be voted on by the State Assembly later this summer.

Help us stop the demand for slave made goods and eradicate modern day slavery at its source!  We need as many people as possible to contact their CA Assembly members BY AUGUST 2nd, asking them to vote YES on SB 657 and SB 1231, two bills that will help increase transparency and accountability in our supply chain.

Below are links to new materials and resources for CAST's Supply Chain advocacy work in California.

• CAST Supply Chain Fact Sheet: CAST Supply Chain fact sheet.pdf
• Action Alert on SB 657 to send to your Assembly Member: Assembly Floor Alert SB 657
• Action Alert on SB 1231 to send to your Assembly Member: Assembly Floor Alert SB 1231
  • Sample email to send to your Assembly Member: Sample email
  • Sample phone script to use when calling your CA Assembly Member: Sample script
  • To look up the name and contact information of your representatives in the CA Legislature: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

On June 29th, CAST Survivor Advisory Caucus member, Flor Molina, testified at a hearing in Sacramento regarding the CALIFORNIA TRANSPARENCY IN SUPPLY CHAINS ACT OF 2010 (SB 657-Steinberg), a proposed law that will require big manufacturing and retail businesses in California to disclose their efforts to ensure that slavery and forced labor are not used in their supply chains.

Flor was trafficked into the United States and forced to work in a sweatshop, sewing dresses that were sold in top departments stores across the state. She was locked inside the sweatshop and forced to work in deplorable conditions for over 18 hours a day. She was told that if she tried to escape, her family would pay. Flor was finally able to escape and found help from a community based organization called the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), who referred her to the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST), where she received legal and social services, including shelter.

The proposed legislation is authored by Senator Darrell Steinberg and co-sponsored by CAST , the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking (ASSET) and the Consumer Federation of California. The Bill simply asks large manufacturers and retailers doing business in California to disclose their efforts on combating slavery and forced labor in their goods they produce and sell. Transparency of their efforts will allow consumers and even other businesses and investors, to make a more informed decision about with whom they do business. SB 657 will enhance projects such as Chain Store Reaction, which has consumers ask companies to disclose their policies on a voluntary basis.

Earlier this year, the Senate version of the bill was passed and it is expected that the recently amended version of the bill will be debated on the Assembly Floor in early August. The bill passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee after the hearing on June 29th where Flor, Kay Buck, CAST Executive Director and Julia Ormond, founder of ASSET providing testimony.

Kay Buck, CAST’s Executive Director says this is the perfect opportunity for all people who care about eradicating slavery by reducing the demand for slave made products to “make your voices heard in demanding to know that your dollars are not inadvertently supporting the heinous practice of forced labor and human trafficking.” She encourages everyone to contact their Assembly Member before the end of July, asking for their “AYE” vote on SB 657. Information needed to contact your Assembly Member, and details about the bill can be found on the CAST website’s main page: www.castla.org.

For survivors like Flor, this bill is very significant. In her testimony, she said “I know that from my experience that even one person can make a difference. If companies post what they do to stop slavery, people will understand that they can buy from these companies and that will help stop the demand for these products.”

“We inadvertently sanction and promote these crimes at home and abroad through the purchase of tainted goods and products,” Steinberg said. “By giving consumers the power of information they can leverage their purchasing decisions to encourage retailers and manufacturers to keep their supply chain free of trafficking and slavery.”

For more information about the bill, and how you can get involved, visit CAST’s website www.castla.org  or send  an email to supplychain@castla.org

Let your Assembly Members know that passage of this bill is an important step toward eliminating the scourge of slavery; forced labor and abuse exist in our supply chains. Click here to look up your California Assembly Member’s contact info: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

The legacy of slavery in America is inextricably bound with the history of the nation. And the State Department has finally acknowledged that, even today, people continue to be bought and sold as property.

Click here to read more

SB 657 would provide this information by requiring large manufacturers and retailers with $100 million or more in annual gross receipts in California to post to what extent they make certain basic efforts on forced labor and human trafficking.  The questions asked are simple.  They include whether or not a company has their suppliers self-certify compliance with state and federal laws regarding slavery.  Do they encourage employees and management to be trained on slavery and trafficking?  Do they conduct unannounced audits of suppliers?

These very simple questions will provide transparency as to the company’s practices so that consumers can decide for themselves with whom they want to do business.   This practice will also benefit companies that are struggling to do the right thing while competing against companies that are unfairly and illegally using slave labor.

SB 657 is good for:

Victims of forced labor and human trafficking; Consumers wanting to make informed decisions, Investors wanting to make responsible decisions and Responsible businesses.

Help us stop the demand for slave made goods and eradicate modern day slavery at its source.

Visit  http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html  to look up the name and contact information of your representatives in the CA Legislature.

Click here for sample email to send to your Assembly Member:  sample email

Click here for a sample phone script to use when calling your CA Assembly Member: Sample call in script

Click here to download CAST's Supply Chain Fact Sheet: CAST Supply Chain fact sheet.pdf

Unfortunately, the problem of human trafficking and slavery is growing.  Living in California, one is particularly aware of the problem as California, due to our geographic location, ports, diverse population and economic base, has the unfortunate distinction of being a hub for slavery and human trafficking.  In fact, Los Angeles is one of the top three points of entry into this country for victims.  We have a high volume of people brought here from other countries in addition to those already living here who are victimized and exploited.

Please take action to help increase funding for human trafficking survivors by calling the following California Senator and Congressmen on the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Committee. Talking points are provided below. Take this action prior to April 25, 2010.

Senator Dianne Feinstein: Phone: 202-224-3841

Congressman Adamn Schiff: Phone:  202-225-4176

Congressman Michael Honda: Phone 202-225-2631

Talking Points:

Thank you for your strong support to end human trafficking and slavery in the FY 2010 Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations bill.  Your support provided $12.5 million to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for grants for programs to end human trafficking and slavery, $5.3 million in funding for the Human Trafficking and Slavery Prosecution Unit.  I/we am/are asking for again for your help.

Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world, generating over $36 billion in profits to traffickers annually according to some estimates.  Victims of trafficking in the United States include children and adults trapped in forced labor situations and in prostitution, with little hope of escape. 

Unfortunately, the problem of human trafficking and slavery is growing.  Living in California, one is particularly aware of the problem as California, due to our geographic location, ports, diverse population and economic base, has the unfortunate distinction of being a hub for slavery and human trafficking.  In fact, Los Angeles is one of the top three points of entry into this country for victims.  We have a high volume of people brought here from other countries in addition to those already living here who are victimized and exploited.

These victims often experience severe trauma that requires intensive therapy and rehabilitation. In addition, human trafficking and slavery criminal cases are often complicated and require lengthy legal proceedings.  These cases require significant resources including comprehensive care provided by victim service organizations to support them through their recovery and help them navigate the legal system.  While there is extensive work in California by government entities, nongovernment entities (NGOs) and partnerships of government, NGOs, coalitions and private citizens, these good works needs to be supported and augmented.

As an individual/organization committed to ending slavery and human trafficking by protecting the victims of human trafficking and modern day slavery and prosecuting human trafficking, I/we urge you to:

- Support $15 million for Victims of Trafficking Grants with no less than $6.7 million for foreign nationals.
- Include report language requiring the Department of Justice to establish a point of contact in each U.S. Attorney Office to better coordinate human trafficking and slavery efforts in each jurisdiction
 - Include report language for FBI victim witness coordinators.
 - Support $5.3 million in funding for the Human Trafficking and Slavery Prosecution Units.
-  Support $15 million to the FBI for investigations in to trafficking.

Thank you for your past support and consideration of these requests and your continued leadership in fighting human trafficking and slavery. If you have any questions on these issues, please contact Stephanie Richard at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST) based in Los Angeles at 213.365.1906.

If you would like to take further action you can also visit change.org to sign on to a petition to support additional funding for trafficking survivors. Please click here for the link
 Thanks for your support!

GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up!

GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 30 percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy's and Barnes & Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, you'll be supporting your favorite cause.

And if you download the GoodSearch – Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking - CAST toolbar, our cause will earn money every time you shop and search online - even if you forget to go to GoodShop or GoodSearch first! Add the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking - CAST toolbar at http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/coalition-to-abolish-slavery-and-trafficking-cast

click here for 27 Things You Can Do to Help Fight Trafficking & Slavery

Religious Congregations and Agencies to Convene on Human Trafficking Issues
Symposium 2010: Human Trafficking: the PRICE we pay…

Los Angeles, CA – In a Presidential Proclamation on January 4, 2010, President Obama declared, “Fighting modern slavery and human trafficking is a shared responsibility. This month, I urge all Americans to educate themselves about all forms of modern slavery and the signs and consequences of human trafficking. Together, we can and must end this most serious, ongoing criminal civil rights violation.”  For the full text visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-proclamation-national-slavery-and-human-trafficking-prevention-month. 

Slavery conjures images of the U.S. Civil War-era, yet modern day slavery exists today in greater numbers than the mid-19th century, often right under our noses.  It’s estimated that 27 million people worldwide are victims of human trafficking.  Such an outrageous crime against humanity only exists because traffickers rely on people looking in another direction.  You can help bring an end to human trafficking by learning more about it and shining a light in the hidden places where traffickers operate.  A human trafficking educational opportunity is available on February 27 in the heart of Los Angeles.

On Saturday, February 27, 2010, eighteen religious congregations and agencies will gather at Mount St. Mary’s Doheny Campus for a symposium on “Human Trafficking: the PRICE we pay...”  Keynote speaker E. Benjamin Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery, will be joined by workshop leaders on topics including: children and human trafficking, economic causes and effects of human trafficking, modern day slavery and its costs to the millennium development goals, impact on families and communities locally and around the globe, and more.  The public is welcome.  For questions, brochures with detailed topic and speaker information, or to sign up, contact Zonia Duenas at the RSHM Provincial Center at 323-887-8821 ext. 220.

The annual symposium is sponsored by the Southern California Partnership for Global Justice, a coalition of religious congregations and agencies committed to raising awareness and creating action on global, social justice issues.  Members include: 
 Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Human Trafficking
 Daughters of Charity, West Province
 Daughters of Mary and Joseph
 Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose
 Immaculate Heart Community
 Office of Justice and Peace, Archdiocese of L.A.
 Pax Christi Los Angeles
 Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary
 Religious Sisters of Charity
 Sisters of Notre Dame
 Sisters of the Holy Family
 Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus & Mary
 Sisters of Providence
 Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet
 Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange
 Sisters of St. Louis
 Sisters of Social Service
 Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus

AT A GLANCE
Symposium 2010 - Human Trafficking: the PRICE we pay…

Date:    Saturday, February 27, 2010
Time:   8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Location:  Mount St. Mary’s College – Doheny Campus
10 Chester Place, Los Angeles, CA 90007-2598

Keynote Address: “Human Trafficking: the PRICE we pay…” 
E. Benjamin Skinner
Author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern Day Slavery 
  
Workshop Speakers: (1) “Modern Day Slavery and Its Costs to the Millennium Development Goals”
Sister Rita Arthur, RSHM, United Nations NGO Representative 
   
(2) “Slavery: Its Devastating Impact on Families and Communities Here and Around the World”
Kay Buck, Executive Director of the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking (CAST)  
   
(3) “Human Trafficking – The Environment as Another Victim”
Allis Druffel, Chair of the Los Angeles Archdiocese Justice and Peace Commission 
   
(4) “Economic Causes and Effects of Human Trafficking”
Dr. Amata Miller, IHM, Professor of Economics and Social Justice
St. Catherine University (St. Paul, MN) and Marygrove College (Detroit, MI)  

(5) “Children and Human Trafficking”   
Sandie Morgan, Administrator, Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force
   
(6) “Redeeming Humanity”
Heather Moore, MSW, Consultant for agencies in developing programs and service provision for women, youth and survivors of violence
   
(7) “Where is the Moral Outrage?  Human Trafficking and the Moral Fabric of Society”
Dr. Jonathan Rothchild, Assistant Professor of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University

Schedule:  8:30 a.m. Registration begins
   9:00  Welcome, Overview, Reflection
   9:10  Keynote Address: E. Benjamin Skinner
   10:00  Survivors tell stories
   10:20  Break
   10:40  Workshop Session I
   11:30  Moving Break
   11:40  Workshop Session II
   12:30 p.m. Lunch
   1:00  Round Table Discussions with Presenters
1:45   Panel Discussion
   2:45   Closing

Logistics:
 Bring bag lunch
 Drinks provided
 Campus cafeteria will be open
 Carpooling is encouraged
 Questions or Financial Assistance, please contact Sister Mary or Zonia at
323-887-8821 ext 220.

To Register:
 $10 before Feb. 5, 2010
 $15 after Feb. 6, 2010
 Walk-ins are welcome at $15 rate if space is available.

Click here for the registration form

Checks can be made payable to RSHM.  Please mail registration to:
RSHM Provincial Center
Attn: Symposium 2010
441 N. Garfield Avenue
Montebello, CA 90640

Part 1 Slavery in America

Part 2 Slavery in America

Senate to hold joint hearing on slavery and trafficking
Thursday, December 03, 2009
 
California’s role in the growing
global problem of human trafficking
 
SACRAMENTO – Human trafficking is one of the fastest-growing criminal industries in the world, according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
 
To combat the problem within California, legislators have passed anti-trafficking laws. Now, two State Senate committees are considering California’s role – as the world’s eighth largest economy – in the global problem of human trafficking.
 
WHAT: “Everyone’s Business: California’s Role in Combating Human Rights Violations in Product Supply Chains”
 
WHEN: 10 a.m. Monday, Dec. 7
 
WHERE: Auditorium of the Ronald Reagan State Building, 300 South Spring St., Los Angeles
 
WHO: This is a joint hearing of the Senate Standing Committee on Labor and Industrial Relations, chaired by Sen. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), and the Senate Standing Committee on Judiciary, chaired by Sen. Ellen M. Corbett (D-San Leandro) .
State Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who requested the hearing, will also attend. Last year, Steinberg introduced Senate Bill 657, which requires retailers’ and manufacturers’ to provide consumers with information about corporate efforts to eradicate slave labor and trafficking from product supply chains.
 
VISUALS: Two trafficking victims will share their stories.

NUMBERS
• Worldwide, nearly 12.3 million people (equivalent to one-third of California’s population) are working in some form of forced labor worldwide, according to the International Labor Organization.

California is positioned to impact the supply chains of products associated with slavery and trafficking.
• California imported nearly $200 billion in merchandise from abroad in the first three quarters of 2009 alone—nearly 18 percent of all imports into the United States.
• California’s wholesale trade sales in 2002 were more than $655 billion, retail sales totaled $359 billion, and accommodation and food services totaled more than $55 billion.

Other CAST campus chapters are starting up around LA. The Oxy students were creative, knowledgeable, energetic and an inspiration about the power of students to affect change in their community .

The photos are from the anti-trafficking fair they held on their campus November 3rd 2009. The class broke into 4 groups and each group covered a different type of trafficking (garment industry, agriculture, domestic servitude and sex trafficking). They all made poster boards, brochures and had clever games and handouts to educate their peers.

The students were from a semester long course taught by Professor Donna Maeda on trafficking in persons at Occidental college. As part of the social justice aspect of the course they arranged to hold a fair on their campus and raise awareness about this issue with their student body. They also raised $84.16 from other students and lots of canned goods which they donated to our shelter.

All of CAST’s student groups are planning awareness activities on campus for our Jan 11th-Feb 12th 2010 awareness campaign.

Story on NPR about Emma Thompson's efforts in art to tell the story of human trafficking.

You can click on the youtube interview and a tour of the art installation.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114328601

Click for annimated course map

Supporters of the anti-trafficking movement will be showing up in droves—over 300 people are set to show up at the stadium, brandishing Stop Human Trafficking T-shirts. Lend your voice and presence, and join this team! You can purchase discounted tickets, and get your T-shirt here: http://www.sharedhope.org/what/events.asp

“The public perception is that human trafficking victims are all vulnerable females forced into prostitution and sexual slavery, but this is not the case. It does not occur to many people that the scale of trafficking is much broader, and that it affects a sizeable amount of men. Organisations have to work now to make sure people know about this... If you end up in a country with no passport, no job and no money, the chances are that you will end up being exploited. But the safety net in such cases is much broader for women than for men,”

Push factors that drive men to fall into trafficking situations are heightened by the economic crisis. Joe Lowry, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies representative for the Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus says:

“The number of males being trafficked is rising…The economic crisis has put pressure on men to go out and find work to support their families, and in such times people begin to take more risks."

Read the rest of the report here.

Shared Hope International released a report last week on child sex trafficking in the U.S. Their findings showed that these victims of human trafficking are "victimized twice—first by the prostitution and then by the broken system that treats them like criminals."

Read their press release below:

WASHINGTON, July 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/

Shared Hope International will release a groundbreaking report on child sex trafficking in the United States at the Congressional Human Trafficking Briefing on Capitol Hill hosted by the Human Trafficking Caucus and Victims' Rights Caucus led by Congressman Poe (TX) and Congressman Smith (NJ), long-time advocates for victims protections. Former Congresswoman Linda Smith (1994-98), Founder of Shared Hope International, will open a panel discussion on the findings of more than four years of research in America. Shared Hope International's National Report on Domestic Minor Sex Trafficking, America's Prostituted Children highlights the harsh reality that hundreds of thousands of American children are victimized through sex trafficking in the United States driven by the demand for the commercial sex acts they perform. A child sex trafficking victim who is purchased for sex by 5 different men per night, 5 nights per week for an average of 5 years would have been raped by 6,000 buyers during her victimization through prostitution. Many of these child rapists are never charged or prosecuted while the young victims' lives are destroyed.

"The horror is that our children are victimized twice—first by the prostitution and then by the broken system that treats them like criminals while the buyers are given a slap on the wrist, if anything at all. What kind of message is this sending?" asked Founder and President of Shared Hope International, Linda Smith.

Ambassador Louis C. de Baca of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons at the U.S. Department of State will present findings from the 2009 TIP Report and panelists from the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Criminal Division will discuss domestic child sex trafficking, followed by an NGO panel led by Congresswoman Linda Smith and highlighting Ernie Allen, President and CEO of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

"From our investigative research gathered from 11 cities across the nation, we've found so many victims of domestic minor sex trafficking that are misidentified, and labeled as prostitutes. They are sold every day, every night in every city in America," said Smith. Watch human rights surveillance video instantly here: http://www.sharedhope.org/what/dmst.asp.

What: Congressional Human Trafficking Briefing

Where: Capitol Hill, Rayburn Room 2226

Washington, D.C.

When: Tuesday, July 21, 2009

10:00 a.m. - Noon

About Shared Hope International

For more than a decade, Shared Hope International (SHI) has worked around the world partnering with local groups to prevent trafficking and to rescue and restore the victims of sexual slavery. Shared Hope International's DEMAND. project was a 12-month investigation which focused on commercial sexual exploitation in four countries, including the United States. With funding from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), SHI conducted field assessments on child sex trafficking in 10 U.S. locations. Visit www.sharedhope.org.

SOURCE Shared Hope International

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) appointed Eskinder Nagesh the new Director in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. Nagesh was most recently the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI.)

For more information, go here.

Or, call the National Human Trafficking REsource Center at 1.888.3737.888

The ACLU reported the publication of this pamphlet on their Blog of Rights, saying:

The pamphlet, whose creation and dissemination is mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), enacted last December, is to be distributed to temporary visa holders before they leave their home countries. It will be available in 11 languages and will be distributed by every U.S. Embassy and Consulate throughout the world.

The pamphlet provides workers information about their legal rights regarding pay, discrimination, sexual harassment, health and safety, unions and collective bargaining, leaving an abusive employment situation, and employer retaliation. Domestic workers employed by diplomats are specifically advised that they have the right to an employment contract describing their work duties, work hours, days off, and pay and that their diplomat employers may not confiscate their passports or other personal property. The pamphlet also describes warning signs of human trafficking, explains how to get help, and addresses concerns about deportation.

Download the pamphlet here or here.

Last November, this issue made headlines, when a Falls Church, VA area man named Soripada Lubis was arrested and charged with “conspiracy to harbor illegal immigrants.” Anti-human trafficking experts soon made it clear, that what Lubis engaged in was human trafficking—virtually imprisoning around 20 domestic servants over seven years, charging them with arbitrary debt, confiscating their passports, threatening the lives of their families, and in some cases, sexually assaulting them.

The Washington Examiner revisited this story today with an article titled “Prosecutors say wealthy residents used slave labor.

The Examiner reported that the court was presented with a list of Lubis’ 50 clients, who utilized the services of the domestic workers he harbored. The list included “a high-profile Washington attorney, multiple doctors—among them a high-ranking doctor at a Maryland hospital—and an engineer who invented an electric backup system for houses that use well water.”

None of these wealthy clients who, consciously or not, used slave labor, have been charged with crimes. But, the Examiner writes, “prosecutors had tough words” for them: “‘The various employers are also participants… They knew or were willfully blind to the fact that the victims were illegal aliens and that Lubis harbored them.’”

Read more about this case here.

If you suspect that someone you have contact with is a victim of human trafficking, call:

National hotline: 888.3737.888

Los Angeles Metro Taskforce: 800.655.4096

California's Assembly Public Safety Committee approved SB 557 yesterday. The legislation allows courts to seize any property traffickers used in the course of committing their crime, and instates an additional civil fine up to $25,000.

The Senate Bill was authored by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco/San Mate). Assembly Appropriations Committee will now consider the bill.

Read California Chronicle's article on this case here.

Read SEPRO news' report here.

The Attorney Generals' annual report has been released. The report includes information on CAST.

Download Here

Following her presentation of the 9th Annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post . Clinton says the economic crisis may be fueling an increase in incidences of human trafficking, and stresses that modern day slavery must be challenged with "a comprehensive approach that both brings down criminals and cares for victims."

Clinton's article is here:

The Washington Post

Partnering Against Trafficking

By Hillary Rodham Clinton

Twenty-year-old Oxana Rantchev left her home in Russia in 2001 for what she believed was a job as a translator in Cyprus. A few days later, she was found dead after attempting to escape the traffickers who tried to force her into prostitution.

Oxana's story is the story of modern slavery. Around the world, millions of people are living in bondage. They labor in fields and factories under threat of violence if they try to escape. They work in homes for families that keep them virtually imprisoned. They are forced to work as prostitutes or to beg in the streets. Women, men and children of all ages are often held far from home with no money, no connections and no way to ask for help. They discover too late that they've entered a trap of forced labor, sexual exploitation and brutal violence. The United Nations estimates that at least 12 million people worldwide are victims of trafficking. Because they often live and work out of sight, that number is almost certainly too low. More than half of all victims of forced labor are women and girls, compelled into servitude as domestics or sweatshop workers or, like Oxana, forced into prostitution. They face not only the loss of their freedom but also sexual assaults and physical abuses.

To some, human trafficking may seem like a problem limited to other parts of the world. In fact, it occurs in every country, including the United States, and we have a responsibility to fight it just as others do. The destructive effects of trafficking have an impact on all of us. Trafficking weakens legitimate economies, breaks up families, fuels violence, threatens public health and safety, and shreds the social fabric that is necessary for progress. It undermines our long-term efforts to promote peace and prosperity worldwide. And it is an affront to our values and our commitment to human rights.

The Obama administration views the fight against human trafficking, at home and abroad, as an important priority on our foreign policy agenda. The United States funds 140 anti-trafficking programs in nearly 70 countries, as well as 42 domestic task forces that bring state and local authorities together with nongovernmental organizations to combat trafficking. But there is so much more to do.

The problem is particularly urgent now, as local economies around the world reel from the global financial crisis. People are increasingly desperate for the chance to support their families, making them more susceptible to the tricks of ruthless criminals. Economic pressure means more incentive for unscrupulous bosses to squeeze everything they can from vulnerable workers and fewer resources for the organizations and governments trying to stop them.

The State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons Report, released this week, documents the scope of this challenge in every country. The report underscores the need to address the root causes of human trafficking -- including poverty, lax law enforcement and the exploitation of women -- and their devastating effects on its victims and their families.

Since 2000, more than half of all countries have enacted laws prohibiting all forms of human trafficking. New partnerships between law enforcement and nongovernmental organizations, including women's shelters and immigrants' rights groups, have led to thousands of prosecutions, as well as assistance for many victims.

The 2009 report highlights progress that several countries have made to intensify the fight against human trafficking. In Cyprus, where Oxana Rantchev was trafficked and killed, the government has taken new steps to protect victims. Another example is Costa Rica, long a hub for commercial sex trafficking. This year, it passed an anti-trafficking law; trained nearly 1,000 police, immigration agents and health workers to respond to trafficking; launched a national awareness campaign; and improved efforts to identify and care for victims. This progress is encouraging. Much of it is the result of the hard work of local activists such as Mariliana Morales Berrios, who founded the Rahab Foundation in Costa Rica in 1997 and has helped thousands of trafficking survivors rebuild their lives. Advocates such as Mariliana help spur change from the bottom up that encourages governments to make needed reforms from the top down.

We must build on this work. When I began advocating against trafficking in the 1990s, I saw firsthand what happens to its victims. In Thailand, I held 12-year-olds who had been trafficked and were dying of AIDS. In Eastern Europe, I shared the tears of women who wondered whether they'd ever see their relatives again. The challenge of trafficking demands a comprehensive approach that both brings down criminals and cares for victims. To our strategy of prosecution, protection and prevention, it's time to add a fourth P: partnerships.

The criminal networks that enslave millions of people cross borders and span continents. Our response must do the same. The United States is committed to building partnerships with governments and organizations around the world, to finding new and more effective ways to take on the scourge of human trafficking. We want to support our partners in their efforts and find ways to improve our own.

Human trafficking flourishes in the shadows and demands attention, commitment and passion from all of us. We are determined to build on our past success and advance progress in the weeks, months and years ahead. Together, we must hold a light to every corner of the globe and help build a world in which no one is enslaved.

MTV's EXIT campaign previously produced videos featuring high profile celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Lucy Liu, and Korea's pop superstar Rain. Watch the video here.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented the release of the 9th annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which indicates that the recession is fueling the global demand for trafficked labor.

Clinton followed the presentation with an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, in which she highlighted the U.S.'s culpability in modern day slavery. She wrote: "To some, human trafficking may seem like a problem limited to other parts of the world. In fact, it occurs in every country, including the United States, and we have a responsibility to fight it just as others do."

Download the report.

Be in the know on all Human Trafficking bills by downloading this chart.

Download this for more information >>

Download this for more info (pdf) >>

Download this for more info (pdf) >>

Download this for more info (pdf ) >>

Assembly Bill 1002 seeks to create the California Human Trafficking Trust Fund. The purpose of this fund is to provide funding for victim service programs to assist victims of human trafficking with shelter, legal assistance, medical care, case management, and job training.

Download this for more information (pdf) >>

Download this for more information (pdf) >>

READ THE STORY: http://www.laweekly.com/2009-02-19/news/enslaved-in-suburbia-behind-the-tract-house-door-filipino-indentured-servants-and-visa-violators-caught-in-the-eldercare-trap/%20

 DOWNLOAD THE STORY: Enslaved in Suburbia_LA Weekly (PDF)

READ THE STORY: http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/social-justice/2008/12/hidden-plain-sight

 DOWNLOAD THE STORY: HiddeninPlainSight (PDF)