[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

RAFFICKING ESTIMATES

UNODC

2.5 million people

P

2008

[Link]

UNODC perspectives publication

"Some 2.5 million people throughout the world are at any given time recruited, entrapped, transported and exploited-a process called human trafficking-according to estimates of international experts."

UNIFEM

500,000 to two million

P

2007

[Link]

UNESCO

"Estimates of the number of trafficked persons range from 500,000 to two million per year, and a few organizations have estimated that up to four million persons are trafficked every year."

FBI

up to two million people

P

2006

[Link]

State Department

According to the State Department, up to two million people are trafficked worldwide every year, with an estimated 15,000 to 18,000 in the U.S

UN

600,000 to 800,000

P

2005

[Link]

US State Dpt (TIP Report 2004)

The most cited and extensive data derives from the work of the US Department of State in compiling its annual Trafficking in Persons Report. Extrapolating on its country information, the 2004 report estimated some 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children trafricked across international borders every year- the majority being trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. (UNITED NATIONS EXPERT GROUP MEETING ON INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT Population Division Department of Economic and Social Affairs United Nations Secretariat New York, 6-8 July 2005)

UNHCR

700,000 to four million

P

2003

[Link]

(U.S. Department of State (2002).Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act 2000, Trafficking in Persons Report. June. p. 1.

it is estimated that from 700,000 to four million people are trafficked across borders every year

US Government

600,000 to 800,000

P

2004

[Link]

President Bush

"Worldwide, at least 600,000 to 800,000 human beings are trafficked across international boarders each year. Of those, it is believed that more than 80 percent are women and girls.."

US Government

approx 800,000 people

P

2006

[Link]

TIP Report 2007

Annually, according to U.S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80 percent of transnational victims are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors

US Government

480,000 to 640,000

W and C

2004

[Link]

President Bush

"Worldwide, at least 600,000 to 800,000 human beings are trafficked across international boarders each year. Of those, it is believed that more than 80 percent are women and girls…"

US Government

640000

W and C

2006

[Link]

TIP Report 2007

Annually, according to U.S. Government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80 percent of transnational victims are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors

ILO

more than a million children

C

2005

[Link]

ILO

more than a million children are affected globally every year (ILO, 2002)

UNICEF

an estimated 1.2 million children

C

2007

[Link]

said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman

Globally, an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, within countries as well as across borders,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

http://www.thedaymygoddied.com/

OW do children become sex slaves?
Children who come from the lowest rung of the economic ladder in their society are at the most risk. Education may be reserved for boys, so girls are especially vulnerable and accessible to traffickers.

There are three basic ways in which persons are trafficked: a girl is sold by a family member, friend or neighbor; a girl is tricked into going to another country with the promise of a job or a marriage proposal; or a girl is kidnapped and forcefully taken away. Once in the hands of brothel owners and pimps, the girls are subjected to a tortuous “break in period” that often includes multiple gang rapes, beatings, deprivation of food, and being burned by acid or cigarettes. The abuse can continue for weeks or until the girl complies with the wishes of the brothel.
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WHY do they stay in the brothels?
The brothels owners will go to any extreme to protect their lucrative “property.” Brothels employ guards and enforcers to keep the girls from leaving. Those who do escape are beaten or murdered then used as examples for the others. Girls are disoriented and psychologically tortured until they lose the will to run away.

Sometimes there is a supposed option for girls to buy their way out of servitude—they must work for the brothel until they earn the price for which they were purchased. But the girls are charged for shelter, food, clothing and medical expenses. Their debt continually escalates and in reality, they have no hope of ever earning their freedom.

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WHAT is the size of the problem?
Child sex slavery is a global problem. The United Nations estimates that approximately 1 million girls/women are forced into the commercial sex industry each year. It is a highly sophisticated industry in almost every country, including the United States. In Nepal an average of nearly 20 children a day are trafficked to India and the Middle East with 300,000 Nepalese child prostitutes in India and 650,000 child prostitutes in Asia under the age of 16. Once oriented into the sex trade, a girl might find herself forced to sleep with up to twenty clients a day.

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WHAT is the impact of trafficking?
The human rights violations associated with the trafficking of persons are staggering, resulting in a form of modern day slavery. Likewise, the public health implications are also significant. Many sex workers are forced to have unprotected sex. In Bombay upwards of 80% percent of the sex workers are HIV positive. Many of the victims live in horrible conditions and suffer from a full array of chronic infectious diseases. Girls who manage to escape from the sex trade and return to their villages are often not accepted into their communities – they are considered “spoiled”. In order to survive, they are forced to go underground where they continue selling sex.

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WHAT can be done to help the girls?
First and foremost, more girls need to be rescued from brothels. Then they need housing, medical attention, marketable skills to allow them to earn a living and spiritual renewal. Some can be returned to their home villages and others need a place to die with dignity. They also need strong legal allies who can prosecute cases and create anti-slavery laws that are actually enforced. Outreach is needed at the village level to warn families and expose local traffickers.

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WHO is leading the fight against child sex slavery?
The Day My God Died highlights the work of some of the most effective non-governmental agencies working on the problem of child sex slavery:

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

 

 

A Personal Documentary Journey

I was in the middle of Kamati Pura, the largest red light district in the world and I didn’t even know it. Camera in hand, girlfriend (now wife) at my side, assaulted by smells and snapping away. Later I learned that every vile desire a man could dream of was for sale and child virgins were the region’s most noted delicacies.

I was traveling the world with my girlfriend. The idea was to do what we would never have the time or the luxury to do again. I had just graduated from the University of Utah having majored in film studies.

Among the places I traveled, India and Nepal haunted me the most.
The chaos, the contradictions, the colors, the beauty, the revulsion. The hustlers, the healers, the schiesters, the teachers. What was real? What was not? I found my solace in reading books, newspapers, travel guides, and UNICEF reports, anything I could get my hands on to help connect the dots. Sorting and sifting and trying to make sense of it all, I had the good fortune of meeting Matthew Friedman. Matt took me on a journey that would change my life and haunt my dreams. Born in Newington, CT, a technical advisor for the Office of Health and Family Planning to USAID/Nepal Matthew Friedman is documenting and fighting against the child sex slave trade in Asia. With his coaching and the help of others trying to stop the "fleshtrade" I connected more dots than I once cared or dared to know about. Matt helped me see the unspeakable, and shoot the unthinkable. And that is what this film is about-- tracing the trek of the Asian child sex trade and giving physical form to the unspeakable and unthinkable.

It is our hope to allow these children the opportunity to tell their stories, and by doing so share their hopes, dreams and unanswered prayers.

For one of the most religious countries in the world I found it quite ironic that Nepal the birthplace of Lord Buddha, preaching the teachings of love and compassion participated in the child sex slave trade. It was later that I discovered India and Nepal's shame was not an isolated problem, but that every nation in the world participates in the human suffering callously labeled as child prostitution. In my mind it is nothing short of slavery--where children are chattel and rape is the instrument of profitability.


Common Goal

Each year, over one million women and girls as are trafficked into the sex trade throughout the world. This emerging problem represents one of the most horrid human rights violations known to human kind. After finding themselves at a brothel, many girls are gang raped, tortured and forced to have sex with as many as twenty men a day. Following several years of this sexual slavery, many become infected by various sexually transmitted diseases, including an 80% HIV/AIDS rate. Because so little is known about the problem, both at home and abroad, this film attempts to bring together a number of groups/individuals who are working to fight against trafficking each with the common goal to create awareness and to help bring about action against this problem.


A Life Changing Event

The dream of the great American novel had been usurped by cinema in my generation and I was determined to produce the screenplay that would define my career in my first draft. After a year of research in cyberspace and communications with people on the frontlines trying to stop the slave trade, it was time to see first hand what I had been researching and seeing on my computer.

It was there in Nepal on my very first day where everything changed. We were visiting our first non-profit who provided aftercare for the young girls who had been rescued from the brothels of Bombay

There in front of me was a room, a room of lost innocence, a room of stolen youth. Thirty young girls and babies all returned from India. All dying of AIDS, all knowing they are dying of AIDS. Every emotion running through me. Should I cry? Should I scream? What should I do? - -Journal Entry, April 20, 1999

It was that exact moment when I realized the first step was not to write a fictionalized screenplay, but rather the first step must be to document the real story, by combining real words, and real statistics with pictures that don't lie.

There were so many stories of strength and resiliency. So many unanswered prayers and so many betrayals left unaccounted for. My hope is that we have created a film that begins to paint a picture of what human beings are capable of. It is a story of repeated betrayals and yet, it reminds us of how resilient the human spirit is and can be.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Kamathipura






A lane in Kamathipura

 

 

 

 

In the heart of Mumbai, India [also known as Bombay] lies Kamathipura, one of the country's poorest districts and also its largest red light district, home to more than 60,000 sex workers. In the spring of 2004, FRONTLINE/World correspondent Raney Aronson traveled to Kamathipura to investigate what has quickly become the center of the AIDS epidemic in India, which affects more than four and a half million people.
On the streets of Kamathipura, it's no challenge for Aronson to find sex workers to talk with. In a small gathering she asks them frankly about the core issues of their trade -- economics and health. The women get the equivalent of US$1.50 for sex, $2 on a good night, less than a dollar on a bad night. To have sex without a condom, men will often pay more or, after a few visits, tell the women they love them. The women in the group laugh a bit about the men's proclamations of love, but there's a tragic fact behind their laughter: more than half of the sex workers here are HIV positive.
For the pimps and brothel owners of Mumbai, the sex industry is a multi-million dollar business in which money, not health, is the bottom line. The highest prices go for the youngest girls, many of whom have been kidnapped from other countries and trafficked to India, or sold by their own families into the industry.
Aronson travels to the Sanlaap Shelter, where she meets a group of girls who have been rescued from prostitution. The girls tell their stories -- fathers and uncles who sold them, madams who held them hostage. None of them was told about the dangers of HIV. They found out only upon arriving at the shelter, and now it's too late. Many of them are already HIV positive.
Aronson meets Anju Pawar, a social worker with the ASHA project, dedicated to educating women about AIDS. ASHA is made up of sex workers who go into the brothels as peer educators to talk to the women about safe sex. The work is frequently frustrating. Anju says that the brothel keepers often keep new girls from peer educators for their first few months.
Soliciting for sex is illegal in India, but as Aronson surveys Kamathipura, she sees that the police are often part of the problem. Prostitutes tell Aronson that when arrested, they're forced to either have sex or pay bribes for their release. And the youngest girls are the most vulnerable.
Not surprisingly, Mumbai's AIDS rate has soared in recent years. Aronson visits one of Mumbai's largest public hospitals, one of the few in India that doesn't turn away AIDS patients. There she finds a man who is well into his sickness. This man is a migrant worker who's come to Mumbai to make money, contracted AIDS from a sex worker and has likely taken it back to his home community. The man is married, but his wife is far away, at home. The doctors have no way of contacting or treating the wife. Health experts estimate that one-fifth of all AIDS cases in India are married women who have been infected by their husbands.
More than a thousand miles east of Mumbai, along the banks of the Ganges, India's holiest river, things are different in the city of Kolkata [Calcutta]. Notoriously poor and overpopulated, Kolkata would seem especially vulnerable to infectious diseases, but the red light district there has the lowest AIDS rate of any in the country.
This is due to the efforts of people like Putul Singh, who was sold into prostitution by her husband eight years ago at the age of 20. She now works full-time for the Sonagachi Project, the model AIDS prevention group in the country. As Aronson follows Putul on her rounds through Kolkata talking to sex workers, Putul talks about Sonagachi's strategy for combating AIDS. Offering basic health care, she says, is the best way to open the discussion about safe sex.
When Putul talks to women she is extremely frank about requiring men to use condoms. As she tells one woman, "[You] must say 'Look - you have a family at home and so do I. If we don't use a condom our families will be ruined.' You have to look at the big picture."
The Sonagachi Project works with men as well as women to explain the necessity of condoms. Aronson attends a meeting of some of the area's pimps and regular clients, locally called babus. Listening to Putul's arguments with one man, who insists that he is disease-free and at the same time refuses to accept that condoms will do anything for him, it's clear she faces an uphill battle.
Another group meeting, of the sex workers' union in Kolkata, is more encouraging. Even though prostitution is also illegal in Kolkata, the union is recognized by the state of West Bengal, which has been run by a communist government for 25 years. Union president Rama Debnath explains to union members that when they're confronted by the police, they need to stand up to them and have courage. "What's your rank? Where's the charge?" she tells them to ask.
It turns out that the combination of the sex workers' union and the Sonagachi Project is making a difference. Condom use has soared in Kolkata, from an estimated three percent to 90 percent. Kolkata's AIDS rate is one fifth that of Mumbai's.
But even in Kolkata, a monumental challenge still remains: reaching the thousands of young girls sold into the sex trade. Rama says one way to do it is to legalize prostitution, so there would be regulations. "In the same way other industries don't employ children," she says, "This industry wouldn't employ children either."
Aronson asks the girls back at the Sanlaap Shelter if they've heard of the sex workers' union. "Nobody came to talk to us," one girl says. "The only people who came were the police to raid the brothels."
Although haunted by their memories, the Sanlaap girls are at least now far from the red-light districts from which they were rescued. Most of their families won't take them back after they've worked as prostitutes, but Sanlaap attempts to give them hope for some sort of a future. But these girls are the fortunate ones. Thousands of other young girls are left behind. And what happens to them in many ways will determine the future of AIDS in India.


http://www.netphotograph.com/viewset.php?id=23 [photos from Kamati Pura]

[Toilet & Bowels]

this would be more exciting news if it wasn't for the fact that these sex slaves are all ethnics

[Lurker]

Why should I curb my lust? I don't use prostitutes.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

this would be more exciting news if it wasn't for the fact that these sex slaves are all ethnics

yekerta? [excuse me?]

[Lurker]

Political correctness baiting.

[floatingslowly]

bondage = HAWT PORN.

right now, I'm touching myself thinking about all those female sex slaves out there....;oohh.ohohohooooh.

[Toilet & Bowels]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

yekerta? [excuse me?]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!



What language is that?

[!@#$%!]

that's appalling, but my lust has nothing to do with this, so it will remain uncurbed, thanks.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Lurker

Why should I curb my lust? I don't use prostitutes.

attention grabbing device, the substance is in the posts, not the title. and a little empathy couldn't hurt either.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

that's appalling, but my lust has nothing to do with this, so it will remain uncurbed, thanks.

yes it does. it is the lust of humanity in general that brings such circumstances upon these women. every day in the US, 137 women enter as 'sex slaves' to serve as prostitutes in bars, street corners, underground brothels, strip clubs, massage palors, even pornography! I am not accusing you or anyone of using these things, but my point in the title, aside from trying to grab attention, was to create a kind of empathy for people to understand that their same feelings of lust, which might very well be acceptable, are the very same kinds of feelings which result in this subhuman bondage, and I thought this might be a mechanism to create this kind of empathy. that is all. no judgements to the Is out there in anyway! please excuse my political application of pruddishness as well, but some things are very serious, like millions of people living in bondage, and not the kinky kind some people enjoy.
1. Metaphysics of Sexuality
Our moral evaluations of sexual activity are bound to be affected by what we view the nature of the sexual impulse, or of sexual desire, to be in human beings. In this regard there is a deep divide between those philosophers that we might call the metaphysical sexual optimists and those we might call the metaphysical sexual pessimists.
The pessimists in the philosophy of sexuality, such as St. Augustine , Immanuel Kant, and, sometimes, Sigmund Freud , perceive the sexual impulse and acting on it to be something nearly always, if not necessarily, unbefitting the dignity of the human person; they see the essence and the results of the drive to be incompatible with more significant and lofty goals and aspirations of human existence; they fear that the power and demands of the sexual impulse make it a danger to harmonious civilized life; and they find in sexuality a severe threat not only to our proper relations with, and our moral treatment of, other persons, but also equally a threat to our own humanity.
On the other side of the divide are the metaphysical sexual optimists (Plato, in some of his works, sometimes Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, and many contemporary philosophers) who perceive nothing especially obnoxious in the sexual impulse. They view human sexuality as just another and mostly innocuous dimension of our existence as embodied or animal-like creatures; they judge that sexuality, which in some measure has been given to us by evolution, cannot but be conducive to our well-being without detracting from our intellectual propensities; and they praise rather than fear the power of an impulse that can lift us to various high forms of happiness.
The particular sort of metaphysics of sex one believes will influence one's subsequent judgments about the value and role of sexuality in the good or virtuous life and about what sexual activities are morally wrong and which ones are morally permissible. Let's explore some of these implications."

"

[!@#$%!]

"the lust of humanity" is a gift from nature, son.

sure it didn't make us perfect, but it made us survive. like everything, it has consequences. some shitty ones like you point out. but don't throw the baby with the bathwater.

for an interesting look at sex and the human species read the classic "the naked ape" by desmond morris-- it's some kind of 70's book that created a controversy in its day.

but anyway yes, horniness makes us do crazy things, and things get nasty.

my answer to the prostitution problem: legalize it, regulate it, tax it. cut the pimps out of the equation. though some people have serious psychological problems and there's no way around that.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

"the lust of humanity" is a gift from nature, son.

sure it didn't make us perfect, but it made us survive. like everything, it has consequences. some shitty ones like you point out. but don't throw the baby with the bathwater.

for an interesting look at sex and the human species read the classic "the naked ape" by desmond morris-- it's some kind of 70's book that created a controversy in its day.

but anyway yes, horniness makes us do crazy things, and things get nasty.

my answer to the prostitution problem: legalize it, regulate it, tax it. cut the pimps out of the equation. though some people have serious psychological problems and there's no way around that.

I never said anything about throwing out the baby with the bathwater in regards to lust, I said to curb it [2.anything that restrains or controls; a restraint; check. 3.an enclosing framework or border.]

and really, I was only half promoting such a thing, as I side before, the title was an attention grabbing device, the substance of the posts is an awareness of the subhuman bondage of sexual slavery, and hopes that as more people become conscious, their shift of intention might help as it did in the days of abolition. we have already dealt with this problem before, there already is an existing template to rework.

[pbradley]

Yes, some group at my school was recently doing a number of public demonstration stuff (mostly what I saw was chalk on the ground) about child slavery in the United States.

[Lurker]

A really good book on lust by a philosopher is 'Lust' by Simon Blackburn. Very lust affirming, if that makes sense.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Toilet & Bowels

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!



What language is that?

amarenya kelenase neguse na melakoch! [amharic, the language of the King and the Angels!]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amharic

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Lurker

A really good book on lust by a philosopher is 'Lust' by Simon Blackburn. Very lust affirming, if that makes sense.

oh, thanks for that! i'll look it up...

[pbradley]

Originally Posted by Lurker

A really good book on lust by a philosopher is 'Lust' by Simon Blackburn. Very lust affirming, if that makes sense.

Or "Must We Burn Sade?" by Simone De Beauvoir

[Lurker]

It's ok to lust ..again........................................... N O W!