As posted on Kos

Raw Story is running a story Governor writes Rumsfeld on human trafficking. The story is referencing an article in the Chicago Tribune. From the Trib article:

"In a letter expected to go to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he is troubled by the Pentagon's inaction on human trafficking and called on Rumsfeld to take aggressive measures to protect human rights.

Blagojevich, a former congressman, was reacting to a story in Tuesday's Tribune about the Pentagon's delay in adopting rules that bar overseas contractors from supporting human trafficking for forced labor and prostitution."

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.

[ 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.

[This is a copy of an email sent earlier in the week to NPR's Morning Edition in hopes that their week long series on the oil industry in Nigeria would include some information on human trafficking in Nigeria.

Friday's report discussed the ongoing corruption investigation into a Halliburton subsidiary, associated with the ELF Oil scandal being investigated in France.]

[update: In this letter I wrongly stated that President Bush dedicated almost 20 minutes of his 2004 address to the United Nations to the issue of human trafficking. I wrote that President Bush felt human trafficking was the third most important "global problem" preceded in importance only by WMD and HIV/AIDS.

In actuality, the speech I was referring to was President Bush's 2003 address to the UN. In this speech President Bush dedicated the end of his 25 minute speech to the issue of human trafficking; focusing primarily on trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. In this speech President Bush stated that "First, we must stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq", the second matter of importance was the proliferation of WMD, followed by HIV/AIDS. After these points he brought up the “humanitarian crisis spreading, yet hidden from view� -human trafficking. President Bush also addressed the UN on September 2004. In this 2004 address he touched upon human trafficking as well.]

Dear Sir or Madame,

I am writing in response to your series on Nigeria and the oil industry in Nigeria.

I am an independent producer who has been researching human trafficking. I have produced a short piece on this subject for Chicago Public Radio, WBEZ.

I write in hopes that NPR will consider including human trafficking in its series on Nigeria, if it hasn't done so already.

The aforementioned radio piece centered around a small group in Antwerp, Belgium that assists women from Nigeria working in prostitution. Most of the women this group assists fit the definition of a victim of human trafficking. I have included a link to the piece at the end of this email.

Many human trafficking experts consider Nigeria to be one of the largest source countries for victims of human trafficking.

An odd phenomenon for such a natural resource rich country.

This is an interesting little piece I saw a while back on the BBC’s website:

French parking fine dodger upheld

The article is on a woman who won a court battle against the city of Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris, because the parking meters only took prepaid cards not cash.

The article states that many parking meters in Paris only take prepaid cards because "vandals" were breaking into meters and taking the cash.

What the story did not say was that some social workers and researchers who work in Paris on prostitution and human trafficking issues believe that the majority of these “vandals� were Roma young adults and children who lived within and on the outskirts of Paris.

KRGV-TV NEWS CHANNEL 5 out of Weslaco, Texas, posted this story last night.

Border Busts Yield 147 Illegal Brazilians

As the t-media section of tradio21 is intended to be a place for exploring the language and perspectives used by the media when reporting on issues related to migration and human trafficking, this short KRGV-TV piece seems as good a place as any to begin.

Migration seems to be one of the few subjects where those that commit illegal acts are deemed “illegal�.

The language commonly used when referring to illegal immigration often present the actor as an illegal entity; instead of simply the act itself.

Few other acts of criminality use language that frame the criminal as the "thing" that is illegal. Most criminal acts usually have a criminal and a criminal act.

The popular language used to describe people who have entered a country without going through the appropriate processes blur the lines between person and the criminal act.

This dehumanizing language, although subtle, is still prevalent, as seen in this KRGV-TV story headline.