How Can We End Internet Trafficking, In This Decade?

• March
• 14

4:58 pm Human Trafficking

How is it possible to read the answers to these questions, and not have this change your life forever? Soma was a very gracious guest on our CHW live radio show, and she gave a lot of very sound and practical advice, ideas how we can start today to make a difference in our own communities!!! And how we can all work from a grass roots level to demand that this stop, not only in America but around the world… Join Dave and Bill as they learn how to start today, by asking the right questions; starting with (what can I do?)…

10 Tips From Love146.org, How-to End Internet Trafficking (EIT) In This Decade?

Somanjana C.Bhattacharya, Public Relations & Communications Division

David C. Ballard and Bill Wardell, The CyberHood Watch Partners

Love146.org Questionnaire: (Soma) and CyberHood Watch (CHW)

1.) (CHW) What is the End Internet Trafficking (EIT)? and how and why did Love146.org help form the new EIT coalition?

(Soma)

EIT’s goal: The coalition’s goal for 2008 is to build a coalition/relationship with organizations such as Craigslist to work towards combating modern day slavery.

We collaborated with like-minded organizations (Safe HS, Fair Fund, Barnaba Institute) to form End Internet Trafficking Coalition in order to bring in new ideas, energy and collective strength to this fight.

2.) (CHW) What specifically would you propose to Craig’s List to help make the Internet a safer place from the exploitation of children?

(Soma)

i. Safeguard its erotic services section by better monitoring and

installing preventative software’s

ii. Introduce proper registration in ES so that all the customers are

traceable

iii. Introduce fine system or some form of penalization if users

advertise Pornographic Stuff

3.) (CHW) What would you like the outcome to be for the public forum held in April, with Buckmaster?

(Soma)

We, from EIT are planning to organize a web-conference in April and then an open forum in September this year where we would like to invite Jim Buckmaster. We haven’t spoken to him on any public forum yet.

to get the print version, click this link:

10 Tips From Love146.org, How-to End Internet Trafficking (EIT) In This Decade?

4.) (CHW) On our Blog is a link to a story titled, “A mum’s worst nightmare“. It seems every story told from a mother’s perspective is “how did this unknown person take control” of their child. How is it that a child, which typically would argue with their parent, “I don’t want to do that”, will allow a stranger to control them and not leave?

(Soma)

The ‘stranger’ inflict acute physical and psychological trauma to the child resulting in completely subduing the child’s persona. Often they are addicted to alcohol and drugs thus the victimized children are not able to think coherently.

Besides, once such traumatization befalls on a child, he/she suffers from a terrible sense of guilt and shame, which prevents them from re-assimilating with their family and mainstream society.

5.) (CHW) How can we as everyday people help?

(Soma)

i. Creating an awareness

ii. Interacting/counseling your children regularly

iii. Monitor your child’s activities

iv. Firewall such web sites which have sexually explicit materials

v. Join us in our efforts

6.) (CHW) In addition to good communications with our children, what technologies do you know of that will help preserve the Internet’s integrity?

(Soma)

Certain software’s can be installed which would monitor sexually explicit materials!

7.) (CHW) How do we teach our children about posting info that could be detrimental to their safety, while still allowing them their freedom?

(Soma)

By discussing the implications. Making them aware of their vulnerability. Be more involved with their daily life and set an example as a responsible parent.

8.) (CHW) How is the Internet changing and how do you see the future of the Internet in the marketing and distribution of sex crimes? and how can parents be proactive in keeping their children safe from predators, and becoming potential sex slaves?

(Soma)

The Internet with all of its conveniences has unfortunately become a major platform for facilitating human trafficking, prostitution and sexual exploitation of children. Currently, approximately 400,000 women and children are being prostituted in the U.S. annually. Surprisingly only 10-20% of prostitution is street-based. Behind closed doors, hidden by the anonymity of the Internet, the exploitation of children is surging.

Craigslist, an Internet company well known for enabling users to conveniently advertise everything from jobs to housing, has now become a popular marketplace for the sale of human- beings. With its free postings and relative anonymity for its users, Craigslist’s “Erotic Services” site has become a vehicle for the trafficking and exploitation of women and children. There have been numerous reports of children falling prey to traffickers advertising on Craigslist and victims as young as four years old have been sold on the Erotic Services site.

25000 ads are posted every 10 days in the ES section of Craigslist.

So keeping the reach and magnitude of the Internet in mind, the parents, High-school teachers, social organizations et al will have to devote significant time and effort to make our children aware of the situations.

9.) (CHW) Is Human Trafficking only young children or are the percentages higher for older teenagers and young adults? and how many of the younger children are part of the rapidly growing Human Trafficking here in the USA, especially in San Francisco and Atlanta areas?

(Soma)

In one of several related cases, hundreds of Mexican girls between 7 and 18 were kidnapped or subjected to false romantic entrapment by organized criminal sex trafficking gangs. Victims were then brought to San Diego County, California. Over a 10-year period these girls were raped by hundreds of men per day in more than two dozen home based and agricultural camp based brothels.

A Latina medical doctor employed by a U.S. federal agency provided condoms to the victims for years, and was told by her supervisors not to speak out and organize efforts to rescue the victims. This doctor was ordered under threat of legal action to keep quiet about the mass victimization of children in “rape camps.”

When a joint FBI, INS and San Diego Sheriff’s raid was finally organized and executed, ten years after local law enforcement first learned about local trafficking, many of the criminal traffickers and johns escaped. The 50 johns and traffickers who were captured were later released when the intimidated child victims refused to accuse their enslavers. Most of the victims were then deported to Mexico without being provided with any victim services.

A number of murdered immigrant teen girls have been found in San Diego, possibly linked to trafficking rings.

The San Diego child sex trafficking case continues to evolve. In June 2003 one of the key trafficking ringleaders was convicted of a charge that would bring him 18 months in jail. The rural rape camps continue to exist and were filmed by a local TV station (see below).

The San Diego Sex Trafficking Case deserves the full attention of the criminal justice system, social service providers and victim advocates. Previous to the notoriety of this case, anti-trafficking advocates noted that some concerned members of Congress and other decision makers would ask “if 50,000 enslaved persons are trafficked into the U.S. each year, where are they?”

That question still needs to be researched and answered on a national basis. In the present, the San Diego case provides the “smoking gun” that documents the true horror of the Latin America to U.S. trafficking crisis.

The San Diego case represents a large tip of the national trafficking ‘iceberg,’ and this case must be addressed with aggressive legal zeal. The San Diego child sex trafficking case is a true abomination in the eyes of the creator and in the eyes of the entire the human race!

Failure to deal with this case effectively will send a clear message to traffickers that the U.S. does not care about the lives and mass-rape of the hundreds of 7 to 18 year old girls who have been, and are today, victimized in this international criminal enterprise. To accomplish an end to such trafficking, cross-cultural compassion and an end to anti-immigrant hostility in U.S. society will have to take place. Otherwise, such hostility and apathy will allow traffickers to continue their criminal violence against these victimized women and children with impunity.

http://www.libertadlatina.org/LatAm_US_San_Diego_Crisis_Index.htm

Atlanta: In the city of Atlanta, girls as young as 9 years old are being sold for sex, according to interviews with the girls themselves and the women who try to help them.

Pimps shower them with gifts, lure them away from their families, and then force them to have sex with strangers, often men old enough to be their father, for just $10 a trick.

Many of the pimps are drug dealers looking to make some extra money, according to LaKendra Baker, a counselor for current and former child prostitutes.

“You can only sell a dime bag once; you can sell a 10-year-old girl over and over again,” Baker said.

Amazingly, pimping a minor wasn’t even a felony in Georgia until 2001 - it was a misdemeanor. But even heavier penalties and some high-profile convictions are not enough to put pimps out of business.

How many have been arrested? I wish I could tell you, but none of the authorities in Atlanta could tell me how many pimps or underage prostitutes had been arrested, or how many pimps have been convicted.

What Fulton County District Attorney’s office did tell us was this: “We need to be much more organized and we need many more resources to adequately combat the plague of child prostitution. While the Georgia law making pimping or pandering a child a felony has helped us secure tougher sentences, the shift from street activity to internet transactions has made it harder to get at the source of the problem.”

LaKendra estimates that hundreds of girls are prostitutes of Atlanta, but she doesn’t have a firm number.

With a crime so disturbing, you’d think somebody would keep a close track of the numbers.

Numbers on the national level are tough to come by too. According to the advocacy organization Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE), 200,000 to 300,000 children are involved in prostitution in the United States and an estimated 10 million children worldwide. But these are just rough estimates.

I spent some time in Atlanta with a girl named Shantique, who had been on the street for a time when she was twelve.

She said that her pimp, known as “Batman,” tied her spread-eagled to the bed posts in the bedroom of a home he shared with his family. He threatened to kill her and her family if she didn’t have sex with another pimp he knew. Sometimes he’d take her out and see if anyone was willing to pay to have sex with her.

Luckily her aunt found out where she was and got her home. But other girls aren’t so lucky. Some of them stay on the street for years.

Shantique is now 19 years old and a freshman in college. She struggles with what she went through, but is getting good grades. She’s also counseling young girls about how to stay off the street. Please click this link: Read the Story…

10.) (CHW) What is the one thing that if you could, you would change about the way the Government, (local,state,fed) Corporation, Businesses, Organization etc…, handles certain issues or the way citizens handle things in regards to Human Trafficking, what would that be?

(Soma)

The mindset of all those people… There is a widespread stigma associated to such issues in the societal spectrum so people, generally are not open to discussions. Trafficked children and forced prostitutes are regarded as criminals rather than victims. To combat this heinous crime, one would need empathy and cooperation from all segments of society.

Thank you so much Soma for your time in answering our questions and the work you do… Please go to the Love146.org website and watch the video and find out how and why the organization changed their name… I promise you this will change your life forever!

The Power of a number, and the power we can create with big Numbers of People joining together to raise awareness to these horrific crimes against the beautiful little children of the world can make a difference… help us to change: The mindset of all people…

The CyberHood Watch Partners

Dave & Bill

to get the print version, click this link:

10 Tips From Love146.org, How-to End Internet Trafficking (EIT) In This Decade?

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