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May 8, 2009 Federal: Help Pass a Bill to Appropriate Funds for Human Trafficking Victims In the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2008, Congress authorized tens of millions of dollars to fund services for U.S. citizen and foreign national victims of human trafficking in the U.S. None of these funds can be released until Congress passes a separate bill to appropriate the needed funds. It is critical that all senators and representatives are aware of this urgent need. Click here to take action and advocate for this bill. |
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June 30, 2008
Human trafficking is a brutal crime of which both US citizens and foreign nationals in the U.S. are victimized. Rhode Island’s current human trafficking policy lags behind federal law and many state laws in how it addresses the sex trafficking of minors and labor trafficking. Rhode Island legislators can and must improve the law – and the final step is to pass H 5661 and S 605. This legislation, sponsored by Representative Joanne Giannani and Senator Rhoda Perry, will improve the state’s approach to end human trafficking. Please take action. |
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June 29, 2009 Washington D.C.: Public Hearing Rescheduled for July 6th on D.C. Anti-Human Trafficking Legislation Human trafficking is the modern day practice of slavery and it is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world as well as one of the most lucrative. Every year traffickers generate billions of dollars in profits by victimizing millions of people around the world – including people in Washington D.C. The U.S. Capitol city is one of the top ten destinations for human traffickers in the U.S. Victims include U.S. citizens and foreign nationals who are forced or coerced to provide labor, from domestic servitude to labor operations to various service industries, or commercial sex in hotels, brothels, and on the street. Victims face a horrific life with little hope of escape in which they are repeatedly threatened, beaten, raped, isolated, psychologically abused, or subjected to debt bondage. These crimes are committed for one reason: the financial profit of traffickers. The District lacks laws to adequately cover cases like these, but with your help legislation now under consideration will change this. The Prohibition Against Human Trafficking Act of 2009 (number 18-70) would create the crime of human trafficking, covering both labor and sex trafficking, with appropriately sever penalties. This legislation will help end human trafficking in D.C. and help victims. But in order for it to pass, D.C. Council Members need to know that the public is in support - so please take action and attend this critical hearing! |
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June 19, 2009 Texas: Governor Signs Two Important Bills on Human Trafficking! Governor Rick Perry has signed two bills that will make a significant impact on human trafficking - the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. HB 4009, as amended, will help end human trafficking by providing critical services to victims (specifically including U.S. citizen victims), creating a statewide taskforce to gather information and analyze ways in which to best address trafficking in Texas, and by implementing training for police, prosecutors and judges on human trafficking, which has proven crucial to the difficult task of identifying traffickers. The second bill which was signed into law, HB 533, will provide that a defendent who engages in trafficking or benefits from it, is liable to the person trafficked for damages, which include: actual damages (including mental anguish), court costs, and attorney's fees. Please take a moment to thank the sponsors of this legislation and Governor Perry for responding to the need for comprehensive laws on human trafficking! Please take action now! |
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Some of the Washington area's wealthiest residents hired illegal immigrant women who had been forced into what experts called human slavery by a Falls Church man, federal prosecutors said. Over the last eight years, Soripada Lubis enticed at least 20 Indonesian women away from the employers who brought them to the United States and farmed the women out as domestic servants to households in Potomac and elsewhere, according to court documents filed in Alexandria's federal court. Read more... |
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Diplomats from Middle Eastern countries serving in Washington made their household servants vulnerable to enslavement by Soripada Lubis when they slashed their workers' salaries and treated them poorly, human trafficking authorities said. According to court documents, the women enticed into Lubis' network came to the United States as domestic servants for diplomats from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen and other countries. Read more... |
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A year after a law was passed to stop human trafficking from Mexico into New Mexico, the state has yet to prosecute anyone. The state attorney general's office says there is a reason behind the lack of arrests—unfamiliarity of the law by law enforcers. Read more... |
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Kansas City, MO - infoZine - Matt J. Whitworth, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced today that an Ottawa, Kan., man pleaded guilty in federal court to the attempted commercial sex trafficking of a child.
This conviction is the result of Operation Guardian Angel, a unique undercover law enforcement investigation targeting the demand for child prostitutes in the Kansas City metro area. As a result of this investigation, a total of seven defendants were indicted in the nation’s first-ever federal prosecution of the alleged customers of child prostitution under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Read more... |
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New York (PRWEB) June 30, 2009 -- GEMS: Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, the nation's largest survivor-led organization serving American girls and young women who have experienced sex trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation, is joining forces with Beyoncé Knowles, Halle Berry, Demi Moore, Sinead O'Connor, Mary J Blige, Katie Ford and women across America for its Girls Are Not for Sale campaign. Kicking off July 7th with the Netflix debut of the critically acclaimed Showtime documentary 'Very Young Girls', the campaign will use e-activism, live events, all-star artist collaborations and other initiatives to promote girls empowerment and education as critical tools in the fight against child traffickers and pimps who victimize between 100,000 and 300,000 American children and teens each year. Read more... |
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"We're light years ahead of other communities," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Molloy, who's prosecuted 20 slavery and human trafficking cases throughout Southwest Florida over the past decade, freeing 50 victims. "Because of our united community efforts, we're in a place most areas aspire to." Those efforts include a two-man team at the Lee County Sheriff's Office, a multiagency task force and a new command center at Florida Gulf Coast University: The Esperanza Project. Read more... |
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In 2000, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act was enacted to supplement existing laws and establish new tools and resources to combat human trafficking and provide services and protections for its victims. The Human Trafficking Rescue Project, a task force based in Kansas City, Mo., and coordinated by assistant U.S. attorney Cynthia Cordes, has resulted in more than 30 people — mostly from Missouri and eastern Kansas — being charged with human trafficking since its founding in 2006. Read more... |
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Federal prosecutors hoping to keep two accused sex traffickers locked up before trial stood before federal magistrates in Portland over the last week and read a statement from the victim's mom.
"I am speaking to the court as the mother of a vulnerable child who was exploited and victimized," prosecutors read to the court. "She is, and always will be, my child. I'm angry at predators like Donnico Johnson and Lisa Miles, who exploit children at one of the hardest times of their lives ... their teens." Read more... |
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The global economic crisis has made people more vulnerable to human trafficking, according to the ninth annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP) released by the State Department on Tue., June 16.
Ambassador Luis C de Baca, director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, called the report a “global snapshot of the modern slavery problem.” He added that “poor people are more likely to be fooled by traffickers offering the lure of a better life.” Read more... |
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A former registered nurse was sentenced Wednesday to five years in prison for engaging in what was the first and so far the only federal sex-trafficking case in San Antonio.
Brent Andrew Stephens, 41, who surrendered his nursing license amid the criminal case, pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to harbor aliens for financial gain and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud and coercion. Read more... |
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The recent efforts of the Minneapolis Police Department's Violent Offender Task Force and the ongoing efforts of the Sgt. Gerald D. Vick Human Trafficking Task Force to vigorously pursue those who buy and sell women for the purpose of sexual exploitation represent a significant step forward in combating human sex trafficking in Minnesota.
Minnesota needs police officers like those on the task force who see through the "Minnesota Nice Guy" image of clean-cut and trustworthy men who do not mistreat women to the underlying criminal behavior on the part of "johns" who seek anonymity in order to continue to purchase human beings for sex. Minnesota needs police officers who hold sex traffickers accountable for using power and control to keep trafficking victims in the trafficking situation, whether or not they use explicit physical force. Under Minnesota law, a victim can never consent to being sold for sex. Read more... |
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A federal court judge denied a Westminster woman's request to withdraw her guilty plea Tuesday and sentenced her to 10 years in prison for sex trafficking of a minor, a 17-year-old cousin whose sexual services she offered in exchange for cash and drugs under the Internet heading "Available now."
Deborah Gail Frock, who was previously convicted of trying to blackmail a state prosecutor, claimed that the government "threatened" her into the plea agreement by outlining plans to file additional charges that carried a minimum 30-year sentence if she didn't accept a plea agreement. Read more... |
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A federal grand jury in the District of Hawaii has indicted Rodney D. King, 43, and Sharon-Mae Nishimura, 30, both of Honolulu, on multiple counts of federal sex trafficking of adult women and minor female victims.
The charges include allegations of sex trafficking of three adult victims. Specifically, the indictment alleges that from periods within April 2006 through June 2007, King used force, fraud and coercion to engage two adult women in commercial sex and that he did so for his own financial benefit. The indictment also alleges that King attempted to engage a third adult woman in commercial sex in October 2007 by using force, fraud and coercion; and that Nishimura aided and abetted him in that attempt. If convicted of any of these counts, King and Nishimura would each face a sentence of imprisonment for a period of 15 years to life. Read more... |
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Arrested teenage prostitutes are often sent back to the streets and the pimps who control them because juvenile lockups are filled with more serious offenders, a police officer who specializes in such cases told state legislators Tuesday.
Atlanta police Sgt. Ernest Britton and others asked members of the House Non-Civil Judicial Committee to support a bill that would decriminalize prostitution for those 17 and younger. Britton said that would help the legal system find help and treatment for teenager prostitutes, who are usually victims of exploitation. Read more... |
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