Salvador Fernando Molina Garcia has pleaded guilty to sex trafficking. He is one of six Mexicans charged with trafficking young women across the border into the United States and forcing them into prostitution. He claims that his wife became a prostitute against his wishes, but she has claimed that he lured her to a hotel, raped her and forced her into prostitution in Houston. Prosecutors allege that he was part of a criminal organisation headed by Gerardo “El Gallo” Salazar, 40, who used violence and deception to force women into prostitution. Salazar has been indicted, but is still at large. According to one alleged victim Salazar used to threaten to shoot women who tried to escape,
“He would shoot them in the spine so they would be paralyzed and have to drag themselves around for the rest of their life,” she said.
The investogation was headed by the Human Trafficking Rescue Alliance, a task force with officers from federal and local law enforcement agencies.

A telephone hotline to help fight human trafficking has been set up by the Interior Ministry in Azerbaijan. The line, (490 90 75), is designed not only as a place where people can report human trafficking and related crimes, but also receive legal advice and counselling if they are themselves victims of trafficking. The line is, sadly, not yet a 24 hour service, but operates between 9am and 8pm.
Azerbaijan has a major human trafficking problem with women and children being trafficked into prostitution in countries such as UAE, Turkey, Pakistan and India. There is also an internal trafficking problem and evidence that men are being trafficked into forced labour in Russia and Turkey.
It is to be hoped that the government of Azerbaijan will continue to improve its performance in the fight against human trafficking, and that it will soon fully implement its national action plan against human trafficking and put into place mechanisms for the protection and rehabilitation of the victims of human trafficking.

John Miller, director of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said yesterday that his office was investigating claims by the Chicago Tribune Newspaper that human trafficking is being used to recruit undocumented labourers to work on US military bases in Iraq. The series of articles entitled “Pipeline to Peril” claimed specifically that twelve Nepali workers had been promised jobs, some in a five star hotel in Amman. Eventually, however, it is alleged that they were kidnapped and taken to Iraq in August 2004 to work as labourers for the US military where they were eventually killed by insurgents during one of the worst massacres of foreign workers to have occurred since the US lead invasion. Some of the men were allegedly sold between traffickers four times before they reached their destination. The men were all ultimately recruited by KBR, a subsidiary of the US firm Halliburton.
While thousands of workers do flow into the Middle East legitimately, Miller said, “There is a dark side to this.” He also said, “If this turns out to be the case in Iraq, something has to be done about it.”
Miller and his department are of the view that no matter how complicated the recruitment process is, a contractor must check that human trafficking is not taking place. “Our view is that the U.S. contractor has to take responsibility,” Miller said.
Despite some resistance from the defence industry, the US State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons is hopeful that the Pentagon will put in place new rules requiring contractors working with the US military to ensure that their subcontractors are not involved in human trafficking. Meanwhile the investigation into the specific case of the 12 Nepali men continues.

State prosecution in Israel has filed an indictment against Leonid Turkin, 52, for sex trafficking. It is alleged that in 2004 Turkin formed a gang to traffic women from Ukraine to force them into prostitution in Israel. The case is base on the testimony of one of his alleged victims. Turkin is charged with bringing a woman called Oksana to Tel Aviv and forcing her to work as a prostitute. Her earnings were taken from her for the first two weeks, after which she received 25% of her earnings to pay for rent and other personal expenses. She was allegedly forced to work from 11am to 4am every day. She claims that after two months she asked for a day off, but instead was refused permission to even leave the apartment. It is alleged that when she refused to obey Turkin she was moved to another apartment in Ashdod and forced to continue her life of sexual slavery. It is also alleged that Turkin posted nude pictures of Oksana on a website.
Turkin is charged with seven offences including conspiring to commit a crime, human trafficking for purposes of prostitution, pimping, violating the privacy of others and housing and driving an illegal resident.
MK Zahava Gal-On (Meretz-Yahad), who heads the Knesset’s Parliamentary Subcommittee on the Trafficking of Women, estimated in a recent report that between 3,000 and 5,000 women have been sold as sex slaves in Israel in the past four years.

A new report brought out by Sydney academic, Jennifer Burn of the University of Technology Sydney’s Anti-Slavery Project, commissioned by 15 religious groups, has heavily criticised the support offered to trafficked women by the Australian authorities. The report claims that if the women are unwilling or unable to testify against those who have trafficked them, then they are often left with no support and have to turn to NGOs for help.
The report, which will be presented to the United Nations committee hearing on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in New York, calls for an urgent review of the visa system and urges the provision of visas for victims of trafficking who cannot testify because of danger to themselves or their families, or who may face danger if they return to their own countries.
The Australian government contests the report and will be sending a delegation to the UN to defend its implementation of the UN Palermo Protocol against human trafficking which it ratified in September 2005.