DHS Launches Promising Campaign to Fight Human Trafficking
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano launched Blue Campaign, an agency-wide initiative strengthening anti-trafficking efforts through raising public awareness, offering victim assistance programs, and providing training for law enforcement officials. Focusing on the Four Ps, Protection, Public awareness, Prosecution, and Partnerships, DHS will be taking a “victim-centered approach,” said Alice [...]
Raising the Bar – The US State Department Reports on Trafficking
This week at Media Voices we focus on human trafficking with the publication of the U.S. Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2010 and Childhood Lost, a video about an often overlooked type of trafficking, transporting children within a country to exploit them rather than across national borders. Also this week, we welcome Bama [...]
Trafficking in Persons Report 2010
Secretary Clinton (June 14, 2010): “The 10th annual Trafficking in Persons Report outlines the continuing challenges across the globe, including in the United States. The Report, for the first time, includes a ranking of the United States based on the same standards to which we hold other countries. The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve but as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery, including those within America. This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.”
Some Thoughts on World Day Against Child Labor 2010
This week at Media Voices we join the world community in observance of World Day Against Child Labor, June 12th. With three decades of service at The International Labour Organization, Armand Pereira is uniquely qualified to provide an overview of the road traveled and the challenges ahead, if we are to meaningfully help working children, [...]
United States Policies to Addresss Child Labor Globally
American Federation of Teachers and International Labor Rights Forum briefing paper on U.S. policies and compliance with Convention 182
Looking at Global Child Labor
This week at Media Voices, we are excited to present a photo essay by Hilary Duffy, Young Lives at Risk on the Street: Central America. Hilary has been working on photographic projects for international NGOs, since she received an International Center of Photography/Johnson & Johnson Fellowship to document the work of non-governmental organizations on the [...]
Accelerating action against child labour
ILO background report on the current state of global child labour prepared for the Global Child Labour Conference in The Hague, 10-11 May 2010
Girl’s Work, or Dignity
Len and Georgia Morris are traveling to the child labor conference in the The Hague this week, so I’m doing the honors for the next two weeks while they’re gone.
Monique DeJong has written a wonderful post this week, Proposed ILO Convention Could Protect Migrant Domestic Workers’ Rights. Domestic work is perceived as a relatively [...]
Question & Answer with Kate Orne
Since 2005, Kate Orne’s focus has been on the victims of the little-known sex industry in Pakistan, who exist under a blanket of denial, modesty, pretense and cultural oppression. She is the first photographer allowed inside to document madams, prostitutes and trafficking victims living stigmatized under local oppressive laws and cultural beliefs. Len Morris asked [...]
May You Never Be Uncovered (Trailer)
Beh Pardeh Me Shey (May You Never Be Uncovered) is a well-known Pashtu wish. The phrase implies that in the eyes of God your honor remains intact as long as any shameful or sinful acts are kept secret.
Since 2005, Kate Orne’s focus has been on the victims of the little-known sex industry in Pakistan, who exist under a blanket of denial, modesty, pretense and cultural oppression. She is the first photographer allowed inside to document madams, prostitutes and trafficking victims living stigmatized under local oppressive laws and cultural beliefs. Artist proceeds from the project support two schools for the children and a health care clinic.
Broken Hearts on Valentine’s Day
This week, US consumers will be spending millions of dollars purchasing chocolate kisses and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate for our sweethearts. But the chocolate industry has broken the hearts of cocoa farmers, labor and children’s rights advocates for years.
Such a Long Journey
Anita Sheth’s article on child labor in the cocoa industry
Child trafficking for exploitative labor purposes in the West African cocoa
supply chain has produced substantial concern for governments, industry, U.N.
bodies, researchers, and non-governmental organizations. West African cocoa
accounts for roughly 70% of the world’s supply and is the main ingredient in
chocolate, whose average annual sales account for billions of U.S. dollars. In
2001, partially in reaction to pressure from consumers, the chocolate industry took
up a call from Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Elliot Engel to address
this issue and ensure that no child is exploited in the harvesting and growing of
West African cocoa. They developed the Harkin-Engel Protocol with time-specific
actions to ultimately impact the removal of the worst forms of child labor, including
trafficking in the Ivorian and Ghanaian supply chains. This paper examines the
results of the Harkin-Engel Protocol and assesses the effect it has had to date, as
well as its projected impact on prohibiting child trafficking for exploitative labor
use in the cocoa sector. The implementation setbacks and pitfalls of the Protocol
reveal its limitations as an effective solution. This paper analyzes these liabilities
and concludes by suggesting how the Harkin-Engel Protocol could be adjusted to
ensure that its ultimate goal of protecting children from the worst forms of child
labor in the West African cocoa farms can be realized.
Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2009
Trafficking in Persons Report, J u n e 2 0 0 9. Since President Clinton issued the first U.S. Government policy against human trafficking in 1998, we have seen unprecedented forward movement around the world in the fight to end human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery. A majority of the world’s countries now have criminal legislation prohibiting all forms of trafficking in persons, and global awareness has been immeasurably raised. This annual report from the U.S. State Department is one of the best sources of information about this difficult subject and summarizes U.S. government efforts to halt trafficking.
Childhood Lost
These are the testimonies of young women who took their chances in the city, rather than remain at home doing domestic labor. Many of these stories are typical of internal trafficking, where a young woman or man is promised a job or a chance to go to school, only to discover that they have to support themselves by selling their bodies in clubs or on the street.
Sanctuary of Moses
SANCTUARY OF MOSES. This film outlines the organization’s work in the West African nation of Benin. The Sanctuary of Moses builds homes, classrooms and schools to improve access to education for children rescued from trafficking and slavery.
The Sanctuary of Moses offers micro-finance programs to cottage-style industries, builds wells and sponsors students and families. Their goal is to help educate 500 children in Benin.
