Two men pleaded guilty in a Virginia state (USA) court yesterday to conspiracy to traffic young Indonesian girls to work as prostitutes and nude dancers. Hans Gouw and Harjanto Komala, both Indonesians resident in the US pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking, immigration fraud, ID document fraud and money laundering. The girls were all aged between 15 to 23. The police managed to break up the human trafficking ring before the girls left Indonesia because they had arrested the men on other charges and then discovered the human trafficking element to the case. The girls would have had their documents confiscated and would not have been allowed to leave the employment of the men for at least a year.
U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty who oversaw the prosecution said;
“The defendants attempted to exploit vulnerable teenage females by bringing them to the United States for sexual activity. This type of human trafficking is the most reprehensible type of criminal conduct,”

Finnish police recently arrested a man on suspicion of having sexually abused 445 Thai boys during the period 1989 to 2004. The 43 year old man from the south east of Finland was arrested in Finland after Belgian police had become aware that he had bought child pornography from a man in Belgium. When police raided the Finnish man’s home they found a diary and video evidence of child sexual abuse. Although the statute of limitations has run out on many of the offences police still hope that they can prosecute.
Finnish police believe that this is not an isolated case. Lars Henriksson of the National Bureau of Investigation said;
“My informed assessment is that a few dozen Finns travel to Thailand each year to take advantage of children”
The recent arrest will act as some deterrent to sex tourists and Helena Molander, chairwoman of the Finnish organisation Children’s Fundamental Rights, said that it was important to work with the travel industry to try to prevent such abuse taking place;
“Employees can be trained to educate, and detect signs, and to intervene in situations.”
Finnish tour operators are signatories to a UNICEF treaty which attempts to eliminate child sex tourism. As part of this treaty hotel contracts can be cancelled if an hotel is found to be a location for child sex tourism. So far no hotels have had their contracts cancelled, and it may be time to take such a sanction more seriously.

A 19 year old Moldovan woman who fell from a sixth story window while trying to escape from her traffickers is to be taken to the US for treatment. Congress woman Kay Granger (R-Fort Worth) discovered the girl while on a fact finding tour of Albania, Greece, Italy and Moldova. The woman had received major spinal injuries which caused her to lose the use of her legs, but was being held in an inadequate medical facility in Moldova. Now, due to the Texas Back Institute Research Foundation, she will be given reconstructive spine surgery in the US.
“Bringing her here meant giving her a chance to heal and start a new life.” said Viorel Gorceag, a Moldovan doctor and medical officer of International Organization for Migration (IOM), who accompanied the young woman.

A recent report by the Inter Agency Standing Committee of the United Nations has highlighted the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights situation in the Ivory Coast. Since the civil war in 2002, the country has been divided between the rebel Forces Nouvelles and the government. Peacekeeping forces patrol the buffer zone between the zones of control, but despite the presence of the UN, local and tribal militias are multiplying and there is a general atmosphere of lawlessness and impunity, particularly in the north and west of the country. The report underlines that, although funds were provided by the UN (through the ONUCI - l’Opération des Nations Unies en Côte d’Ivoire) for the protection of human rights, these funds only paid for personnel and equipment and were not sufficient to finance actual action to protect human rights. It was strongly suggested that more funding be provided both for protecting human rights and also to make borders more secure.
Ivory Coast continues to be a major source and destination country for women, children and men being trafficked into forced labour and prostitution. Children are trafficked from Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, and Benin and forced to work in commercial agriculture and domestic servitude. Women are trafficked from Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, and Asian countries for sexual exploitation in Abidjan in the south of the country. To read the full report, please click here.

Ten people suspected of trafficking children were granted bail yesterday by a court in Lagos, Nigeria, more than two months after 52 children between the ages of 1 and 14 were found in a locked shipping container on a lorry. The children were rescued by Nigerian police. Children from Nigeria or neighbouring states such as Niger are often kidnapped or sold by their parents to go and work in mines and plantations. Some are forced into prostitution or even killed and used in black magic rituals. The trial will resume on May 26th.