"Labor trafficking is so preventable in this country, that’s why it’s all the more outrageous that it’s still existing. Because there is actually a solution, it is very clear. To end slavery, to end human trafficking, you have to end sweatshops. If the big buyers, the major corporate buyers, if they were to say “We don’t ever want to see modern day slavery again in our supply chain,� it would disappear."

Laura Germino
Anti-Slavery Campaign Coordinator
Coalition of Immokalee Workers

Some human trafficking experts and human rights activists believe there is a connection between the US fast food industry and modern slavery in the United States.

In March of this year the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a farm worker group based in Immokalee Florida, came to Chicago to launch a national campaign against McDonald's. Chicago is home to McDonald’s corporate headquarters.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers has helped free over 1000 people held in peonage, forced labor, debt bondage and conditions of trafficking in the United States.

This year the CIW was awarded the Paul Wellstone Award by the Freedom Network USA for their efforts to combat human trafficking in the United States.

In 2003 Julia Gabriel, Lucas Benitez and Romeo Ramirez of the CIW were the first US recipients of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. Per the RFK Human Rights Award’s web site “Farm workers themselves, they [Gabriel, Benitez, and Ramirez] have become leaders in the fight to end slave labor, human trafficking and exploitation in agriculture fields across the U.S.�

This is an audio documentary of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' visit to Chicago.

The Chicago tribune is running a follow up to its Oct 8th series on the use of forced and coerced labor by sub-contractors of KBR entitled:"U.S. stalls on human trafficking: Pentagon has yet to ban contractors from using forced labor"

The article, written by Cam Simpson, describes how lobbying groups for US military contractors have been pressuring the Department of Defense to not implement President Bush’s “zero tolerance� directive, issued in February of 2003.

This directive, known as National Security Presidential Directive 22, stated that "The Commander and Chief has decreed that all departments of the US Government will take a "zero tolerance" approach to trafficking in persons."

According to the December 27th article in the Tribune: “A proposal prohibiting defense contractor involvement in human trafficking for forced prostitution and labor was drafted by the Pentagon last summer, but five defense lobbying groups oppose key provisions and a final policy still appears to be months away.�

CorpWatch is running the Trib story without the need to register.

In October the Chicago Tribune published Pipeline to Peril, a series of articles written by Cam Simpson, detailing fraudulent and coercive practices routinely used to obtain menial labor for the US led war effort in Iraq.

According to the Chicago Tribune series, US military contractor Kellogg, Brown, and Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton, has tapped into a “pipeline� of cheap labor that has existed for decades in the Middle East. Practices that are condemned regularly in the US State Department's annual Human Rights Report and, more recently, the Trafficking in Persons Report, are now routinely being used to obtain workers for the war effort in Iraq.

Along with fraud and coercion, Cam and his colleague, embedded journalist Aamer Madhani, found on US military bases widespread de facto debt bondage coupled with the confiscation of foreign workers' travel documents.

In this audio interview I spoke with Cam about his findings [ 15MB mp3 ].

To date there has been no response from any US government agency on the matters described in the Chicago Tribune series.

[ A version of this diary has been cross posted on The European Tribune ]

This is the second of three posts on countries that are important to the oil industry and also recognized as having a significant amount of human trafficking activity.

This effort is an attempt to expand the context of the dialogue in which human trafficking is placed.

When reading many of the posts on the Web about peak oil or the ramifications of the increase in oil prices, I wonder how the subject of human trafficking might be integrated into those discussions. For me there is a connection, albeit indirect.

Human trafficking, irregular migration, prostitution, exploitation of labor exist within the shadows of our society. I perceive the public dialogue on these matters to parallel this.

[ This was originally posted in the comments section on The European Tribune. It has been somewhat modified for posting here on the tradio21 site. ]

I have not yet seen Lifetime's mini-series "Human Trafficking". I have watched the trailer several times, and have gone through the web site set up for the show.

I perceive this to be a piece that focuses on the spectacular. The Washington Post seems to agree: Exploiting Misery.

If the piece motivates or intrigues some people enough to dig deeper into the subject of trafficking then, regardless of the hyped up approach or hollywoodization of the trafficking subject, it has done something worthwhile.

With that preface in mind, some questions come to me when watching the trailer. Some of this criticism may be inappropriate for what is ultimately four hours of television that has to sell advertising space.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was an effort to address what was referred to as the “white slave trade�. It was a concern that white women were being abducted and brought into the cities, and in some cases to Arab lands, to be used as sex slaves.

Catholic Relief Services(CRS) is the official international relief and development agency of the US Catholic community.

CRS operates field offices, or works with network partners, on 5 continents in over 90 countries.

In this interview we look at the potential for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to contribute to the conditions that could lead to an increase in human trafficking.

Mary Delorey is the Latin American issues advisor for CRS. Mary also has responsibilities within the organization as the advisor on human trafficking issues.

Kathy Selvaggio is the economic issues advisor for CRS. In this capacity she focuses primarily on international trade.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, is intended to “open� markets between the United States, five Central American countries, and the Dominican Republic.

Proponents of CAFTA claim that the agreement will create freer and fairer trade between the nations.

In this audio interview I speak with Mary and Kathy about CRS’ concern with CAFTA.

[Editor's note: The mp3 is currently one file; a little ove 16Mb. Apologies to those with low bandwidth Internet connections. I will have this interview broken into smaller parts in several weeks]

In 1997, a process in Belgium was adopted that allowed a victim of human trafficking to obtain a residence permit in exchange for the victim’s cooperation with the prosecution of the victim’s trafficker.

Sally Beeckmann and Ilse Hulsbosch are part of a three person juridical team, of the non-governmental organization Pag-Asa.

Pag-Asa provides temporary housing, psychological counseling, medical support, and legal assistance throughout the proceedings a victim of trafficking must go through in an attempt to attain Belgian citizenship.

Pag-Asa receives its funding from the Belgian government.

In part one of this audio interview, I spoke with Sally and Ilse about how victims of trafficking find their way to Pag-Asa.

In 1992, Chris de Stoop‘s book “They are So Sweet Sir� uncovered the practice of European sex club owners recruiting women from the Philippines to Europe and forcing them into strip tease dancing and prostitution.

The publication of “They are so Sweet Sir� motivated the Belgian government to create an anti-trafficking task force, develop laws targeted specifically against human traffickers, and establish a network of shelters and counseling services for assisting victims of human trafficking.

In 2003 Chris de Stoop published a second book on human trafficking entitled,“They Came from the East�.

Written from the perspective of a fictionalized Albanian woman working as a prostitute in Europe, “They came from the East� describes a political system that has used the human trafficking cause to push political agendas more in the interest of politicians and non-governmental organizations, than those victimized by human trafficking networks.

In part one this audio interview, I spoke with Chris de Stoop about the differences between his two books.

Paris. July 2003

11:00pm. I meet Anaëlle at an outdoor Middle Eastern café. A mix of Arabic and French intermingle amongst the street sounds and an espresso machine inside. We make our introductions. Sometimes we speak to each other in broken English or broken French, other times it is through a translator.

We discuss the film project on human trafficking that I am working on. Then we discuss journalism and human trafficking -she makes her disdain for journalists clear to me. She asks me where I would like to go tonight and what I would like to see. I tell her anything she is willing to show me.

For the next six hours I receive a tour of the street prostitution scene in Paris.