The US Ambassador-at-large, Luis CdeBaca launched the UN Manual during a brief ceremony organised by the UNODC Regional Centre for East Asia and the Pacific. Ambassador CdeBaca was appointed by US President Obama in May 2009 to direct the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Ambassador CdeBaca was an expert contributor to the UN Manual during the process of its development.

Eva Biaudet, the OSCE’s Special Representative on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, gives an interview to the Armenian television programme ‘Right to Speak’ about understanding and finding the right response to the evils of modern human slavery.
Interview in Armenian with English subtitles, and English.

Among the 450 families living in makeshift shelters on a football pitch in the district of Delmas there are 37 other children like Eliassaint who were orphaned or lost contact with their parents on January 12. The camp is now their refuge — a place where they are cared for and protected.

On the streets, however, many thousands more children have been left to fend for themselves in a city where child-trafficking and abuse was rife even before the earthquake closed the country’s schools, destroyed its rudimentary welfare system, left its police force in disarray and sprang 4,000 criminals from prison.

“They’re in danger. They’re at risk of abuse and aggression. They could fall into the hands of traffickers and pimps — especially the girls,” Blemurned Junior, the camp’s senior social worker, said. His fears are shared by leading child protection agencies, which are racing to find those children before criminals do

“This is a huge, huge, huge opportunity for the gangs,” said Nadine Perrault, Unicef’s chief protection officer for the region. “There’s lots of evidence of the traffickers moving very fast, using all sorts of means.”

Jon Bugge, the emergency communications manager for Save the Children, said: “Even before the earthquake Haiti was a dangerous place for children, and now it’s even more dangerous. They are incredibly vulnerable to abuse, exploitation or harm.”

Working with the Haitian authorities and 29 other organisations, the two agencies have placed monitors at Port-au-Prince’s airport and Haiti’s main border crossing with the Dominican Republic. They are touring hospitals, orphanages and the homeless camps that occupy every patch of empty land. They have set up a hotline, broadcast messages on local radio stations and are sending “mobile child brigades” to scour the slums.

Unicef has set up three centres in secret locations for any “unaccompanied children” that it finds and has taken in 275 so far. “It’s total, total chaos out there, which means time is of the essence,” Ms Perrault said.

There is already circumstantial evidence to suggest that traffickers have exploited the chaos to spirit children out of the country through Port-au-Prince’s airport for illicit adoption, sometimes by well-meaning foreigners anxious to help earthquake victims.

Aid workers talk of seeing fancy cars driving up to charter aircraft and dropping off children without any proper documentation. NGOs such as Save the Children and World Vision have demanded an immediate moratorium on adoptions of Haitian children.

There are also unconfirmed reports of traffickers luring children from camps by offering them food and shelter, of ill-intentioned foreigners masquerading as volunteers and doctors, and of children disappearing from hospitals — “no one can say for sure whether it was family members or people just taking them,” said Margarett Lubin, Save the Children’s child protection manager in Haiti.

Aid agencies believe that traffickers, known as “buscons”, are exploiting the chaos to smuggle children into the Dominican Republic, where they end up as child slaves, prostitutes or in organised gangs of beggars. Even before the earthquake the buscons were consigning 2,000 to 3,000 children a year to that fate.

Aid agencies fear that many “restaveks” — children from poor families who are sent to work as servants in return for their keep — will have been abandoned. “Traffickers fish in pools of vulnerability. We know from past experience that trafficking happens in the chaos that usually follows emergencies,” Unicef said in a statement last week.

The problem, said Roshan Khadivi, Unicef’s spokeswoman in Port-au-Prince, is that after an earthquake as destructive as Haiti’s the authorities are so preoccupied with providing food, water and medical help that “children can easily become the forgotten victims”.

Th People of Haiti Not For Sale

From NFSC Co-Founder: Kique Bazan

Dear Friends:

What happened in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, is nothing short of devastating. It is especially heart-wrenching for those who have seen the poverty and know the needs of the people firsthand.

Before the earthquake, Haiti was already the greatest hotbed of modern-day slavery in the region, containing an estimated 225,000 child slaves. These “restaveks” become domestic servants when their families, desperate to survive, sell them to other households. In 2008 I went to Haiti for my doctoral research and was horrified to see street children, mostly boys and some as young as six, being sold for sex at $1.75.

Since the earthquake, the news reports have revealed a reality that has turned from grim to desperate for the children of Haiti. Children are either separated from their families or orphaned, and traffickers are taking advantage of the situation. Save the Children says that one million unaccompanied children are vulnerable for trafficking in Haiti right now.

During my visit to Haiti I saw different strategies of work. I met people and organizations that are passionate about rediscovering people’s dignity, but I also experienced organizations that defined people by their victimhood. On one hand, it is important to see people’s tragedies in order to gain awareness and prevent the conditions that threaten their wellbeing. On the other, finding those stories that narrate the fulfillment of an individual’s own dreams, in the midst of tragedies, is greatly needed.

At 18-years-old, Fenol is a former “restavek” who escaped enslavement and is transforming his life. He was able to finish high school, get a job, and is preparing for college. As a result, he gained the respect of his peers and is a motivator for other restaveks to pursue their dreams. Fenol helps lead an organization composed of former slaves. These young people were deprived of the most basic human necessities, were neglected and abandoned, faced brutal violence, sexual exploitation, drug addiction, and human rights’ violations – yet they have found among each other the strength and support to improve their lives and the lives of the people around them. They created a system for long-term support and education to broaden their ability to actively participate in their own lives and future.

In the midst of the ruins, we find people like Fenol who are changing the face of Haiti by creating systems that offer concrete, positive results. While earthquakes are the products of nature, the lack of infrastructure and the enslavement of people are not. Therefore, in order to stop the proliferation of trafficking and ongoing vulnerability of children, the Not For Sale Campaign is connecting with individuals and organizations engaged on the ground in vital relief efforts.

One of the most pressing needs to address trafficking is the presence of trained volunteers who can accurately document and register vulnerable children. We are close to forging a partnership where NFSC will train volunteers in our Academy in effective mapping and documentation. Our goal is to equip at least a handful of volunteers for placements ranging from two weeks to a year in Haiti to assist with prevention efforts and to deploy their skills, resources and network to enable people’s dreams of freedom.

If you are interested in receiving training to work with Not For Sale’s efforts in Haiti, please contact us directly at: theacademy@notforsalecampaign.org

Thank you for your ongoing support as we address modern-day slavery amidst this disaster. We will continue to keep you informed as we work to develop innovative solutions to fight trafficking in Haiti.

Sincerely,

Kique Bazan
Co-founder & International Director
Not For Sale Campaign

183 countries are members of the ILO. We need to persuade as many governments as possible to support a new ILO convention.

WRITE TO THE MINISTER OF LABOUR IN YOUR COUNTRY

Please write to the Minister of Labour in your country, urging them to support the adoption of a new ILO convention on domestic work.

Click here to download a contact list for Ministries of labour around the world.

We have provided a standard letter below, which you can adapt with your own words if you wish.

SAMPLE LETTER

Subject: Please support a new ILO convention on Domestic Work

Dear Minister

I am deeply concerned about the situation of domestic workers around the world, many of whom suffer from abuse, exploitation and slavery.

Working behind closed doors in a private household, domestic workers, the vast majority of whom are women and girls, face extremely long hours of work, often for very low wages or none at all, without breaks, days off or holidays. Some are denied adequate food, and many are subjected to physical and sometimes sexual violence.

Domestic work is all too often undervalued, unrecognised and unregulated. In many countries, domestic workers are excluded form national labour legislation. Existing international conventions have failed to address the unique circumstances of domestic work and have not provided domestic workers with adequate protections against exploitation and slavery.

At its annual conferences in 2010 and 2011, the International Labour Organization will discuss creating a new international instrument on domestic work. This is an historic opportunity to achive improved protections for domestic workers and end the abuse of domestic workers worldwide.

I therefore urge the government to:

-Support a new robust ILO convention on domestic work, supplemented by a Recommendation, at the 2010 and 2011 International Labour Conferences.
-Ensure the Convention recognises the special conditions in which domestic work is carried out, set out clear rules to prevent abuse, and promotes equality for domestic workers under labour laws.
-Ensure the Convention contains specific provisions to protect child and migrant domestic workers.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully,
(your name)

Please send any responses you receive to Gemma Wolfes to g.wolfes@antislavery.org or post them to:
Anti-Slavery International
Thomas Clarkson House
The Stableyard, Broomgrove road
London, SW9 9TL
Many thanks for joining our campaign and helping to END DOMESTIC SLAVERY now.

The Campus Coalition Against Trafficking is fighting on the frontlines of the anti-trafficking movement. Our main goal is to raise awareness about human trafficking, advocating for strong anti-trafficking laws, fundraising for anti-trafficking organizations, and building that grassroots movement to stop modern-day slavery. We are supported by other student groups, professors, researchers, local non-governmental organizations, government officials, and other anti-trafficking activists.

Approach and Program Activities
CCAT uses a grassroots approach to catalyze social change and channel the passion and energy of students and youth. We value solidarity with student leaders and organizations and strive to work in a spirit of partnership with other initiatives, including women’s rights, human rights, labor rights, and peace organizations. Our program seeks to build emerging leaders who appreciate the interconnectedness of many global social justice and human rights issues.

Program Activities: Through its efforts, CCAT programs engage in the following activities:

Facilitating cross-sectoral training workshops, lectures, and readings for students that discuss human trafficking, women’s rights, labor rights, human rights, intl. migration policies, sexual exploitation, civil society, and beyond.
Catalyzing the creation of anti-trafficking campus student groups and offering suggestions for their activities.
Fostering inter-campus peer-to-peer dialogues between anti-trafficking student groups, as well as with student groups focusing on other social justice issues.
Linking interested students with internship opportunities in a wide variety of agencies, including established anti-trafficking agencies and other types of agencies that work on social justice issues.
Convening national events and workshops that are open to CCAT members across the nation.
Providing a core CCAT training manual with topics that will include, but are not limited to: tools for organizing an anti-trafficking awareness-raising event, identifying victims of trafficking, and conducting research.
Conducting research to identify what student activities are occurring around the country related to trafficking and what professors are teaching about trafficking in their college classes.

CCAT History
Understanding that student action is a critical component to any comprehensive social movement, FAIR Fund and Polaris Project joined together with 20 students in January 2005 to form the Campus Coalition Against Trafficking. The first launch conference, held in October 2005 at the Georgetown University Law School campus was supported in part by the Georgetown Law School Students Against Trafficking.

By Spring 2006, the Campus Coalition Against Trafficking had student and student group members from 81 schools and 12 countries. In April 2006, CCAT co-sponsored, together with the Northwestern University’s Human Rights Conference Series, the first national student conference addressing human trafficking where 200 students from 92 schools attended. In 2006, supported by the Yahoo Employee Foundation, CCAT offered 12 universities and 15 students the chance to realize their creative ideas to raise awareness, promote anti-trafficking conferences, and advocate for better or new state anti-trafficking legislation in their state.

CCAT students have represented the student anti-trafficking movement in national and international conferences including the annual Freedom Network conference.

CCAT’s current sponsor is FAIR Fund and Polaris Project remains an active supporter of student’s actions against trafficking and CCAT’s mission and goals. In 2007 and 2008, CCAT will grow to reach international students and to increase campus support for ending human trafficking, a form of modern day slavery.

Anti-Slavery International believes it is long past the time when every human being – without exception – should be able to live a life free from slavery. This is why we are launching our new No Slavery, No Exceptions campaign. Sign the pledge now.

The campaign focuses attention on discrimination which is one of the root causes of slavery in the 21st century. In order to effectively tackle slavery we need to tackle the discrimination which underpins it.

The evidence of the link between discrimination and slavery can be clearly seen in much of the project work that Anti-Slavery International carries out. For example, the vast majority of bonded labourers in India, Nepal and Pakistan are dalits and those who are considered to be of “low” caste, indigenous people or those from other minority groups, including religious minorities.

Similarly, caste and ethnic status underpins the use of slavery in Niger, Mauritania and Mali, where tens of thousands of people are ascribed a slave status at birth and are then considered to be the property of their “masters” who force them to work without pay.

In the Republic of the Congo, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru it is indigenous groups who are mainly affected by forced labour. The most common mechanism of control is debt bondage.

Discrimination is a pivotal part of slavery practices because it allows people to disengage their humanity and justify or tolerate the violation of other people’s human rights. Discrimination also limits certain groups’ access to education, jobs and healthcare, leaving them socially excluded and vulnerable to slavery as they look for ways to provide for themselves and their families.

In the coming months we will be taking action on individual countries where discrimination plays a key role in trapping marginalised groups in slavery and urging governments’ to address this alongside measures to prosecute offenders and rehabilitate victims. We will also be promoting the No Slavery, No Exceptions campaign pledge which calls on governments and relevant international organisations to commit to eradicating all forms of slavery by 2015 and to put in place and fully implement national and regional action plans to achieve this.

Anti-Slavery International needs your help in building support for theNo Slavery, No Exceptions campaign. You can do this by
signing the pledge

For more information on the campaign and other ways that you can get involved please join the Campaigns Network

Original Article at:

http://www.antislavery.org/english/campaigns/no_slavery_no_exceptions/no_slavery_no_exceptions.aspx