A Taiwanese man and five Vietnamese people have been convicted of human trafficking by a court in Ho Chi Min City and sentenced to up to 12 years in prison. They had trafficked 126 Vietnamese women to Malaysia between April 2005 and March 2006. The women were lead to believe that they would marry Malaysian men, but in fact were forced into the sex trade. To read more about this and the Malaysian crackdown on human trafficking, please go to
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s1993326.htm

In Ukraine, three mobile phone companies, KyivStar, UMC and life:), have teamed up with the International Organisation for Migration to provide a free hotline service for victims and potential victims of human trafficking. By dialing 527 in Ukraine, people can receive advice and information about human trafficking from the IOM. It is estimated that more than 100,000 Ukrainians have been trafficked since the fall of the Soviet Union. To read more about this and related subjects, please visit
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/ukr070725

The Indian NGO ‘Sramjeevi Mahila Samithi’ has filed a petition in a Delhi court, claiming that 290 women and children have been trafficked for domestic service in the south of the capital by placement agencies. They also claim that several of the children are now missing. Police, however, insist that after “discreet enquiries” they can find no evidence of criminal activity. They also said that the missing children could not be found, as they had no records, and had simply left the city.
It would seem that a case like this requires more than discreet enquiries and that it is not enough simply to conclude that the children cannot be traced due to lack of records. To read more about this and related issues, please visit
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=246922

Jamaican Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Carol Palmer, has promised that the government will soon provide shelters for victims of human trafficking on the island, as Jamaica continues to try to improve its response to the problem of human trafficking. Jamaica is a source country for women and children who are trafficked within the country form rural areas to cities for sexual exploitation and sometimes labour exploitation, including domestic service. Ms Palmer also said
“We have a consultancy on the way for the assessment of scope, and that will be completed in August, at which time we will know precisely the size of our problem in Jamaica, and also out of that, we will have the data systems for monitoring and evaluation of this crime,”
Although Jamaica has a significant problem with human trafficking, it seems that the government is making progress in the fight against this crime.
To read more about this and related subjects please go to
http://www.caribbeanpressreleases.com/articles/2090/1/Shelters-for-Victims-of-Human-Trafficking-to-be-Established-Soon-in-Jamaica/Jamaica-recevied-a-Tier-Two-ranking-in-June.html

BEIJING (AP) — A foreman from a kiln in north China where workers were beaten and forced to work 18-hour days was sentenced Tuesday to life in jail and another man was sentenced to death for the beating death of a laborer, a court official said.

The slave labor scandal erupted last month after hundreds of parents complained their children were being forced to work in brick kilns in Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces.

Read more at http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHINA_SLAVERY?SITE=NYNYP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT