More than 700,000 women, children and men are trafficked across borders every year into forced labour and sex slavery. Thousands of these women and children are trafficked for travellers to use as prostitutes. You can use this site to find out what is going on and also how to help stop this terrible trade. More »

There are more slaves today than ever before, but do you know how to spot them? Business Travellers against Human Trafficking are offering free training sessions to inform you on how to identify and report suspected incidences of slavery here and around the world.

For information contact info@oasisusa.org.

Fri 28 Sep 2007

U.S. Bishop pledges Catholic support to end human trafficking

Bishop Gerald R. Barnes, chairman of the U.S. Bishop’s Committee on Migration, said that Catholic bishops “pledge to use the resources of the church to help end this affliction.” Barnes stated such action includes educating others about the breadth of human trafficking, a phenomenon that exploits and trafficks as many as 700,000 persons globally and 17,500 persons into the United States each year.

Urging Catholics to advocacy, he cited the church’s work in providing social services to rescued human trafficking victims, but also stated that much more needed to be done. Such proposed action includes the church acting as a “center for action to help identify survivors and provide them support.” Barnes also called for a more effective implementation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, as well as calling on Congress to “enact comprehensive immigration reform,” as “undocumented persons eager to find work are easy prey for human traffickers.”

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Wed 26 Sep 2007

Hungary’s licensing of sex workers said to violate human trafficking treaty

Hungarian officials announced Monday that the government will begin to allow sex workers to apply for an entrepreneur’s permit in an effort to bring them into the legal economy. The licenses will allow sex workers, who can already work legally so long as they work within certain zones and get regular medical checkups, to issue receipts and pay income and social security taxes.

However, critics’ decry the act, claiming that the licensing encourages human trafficking and citing that many prostitutes in Western Europe are foreigners who are often lured there under false pretenses. Critics also say that issuing permits violates Hungary’s obligations as a signatory of the 1950 United Nations convention for the suppression of human trafficking and prostitution. Supporters of bringing prostitution into the legal economy say that it will allow sex work to become as accepted as any other job and will improve the conditions of sex workers.

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Mon 24 Sep 2007

Children trafficked from Asia to UK to work in cannabis factories

Youngsters are being shipped across the world and held captive in towns and suburbs up and down the country. By Nina Lakhani

Hundreds of young children illegally trafficked into the UK are the new victims of Britain’s booming cannabis trade. Figures obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal that, as organised criminals push cannabis production to record levels, at least one child a week is being found by police raiding cannabis factories.

Experts warn that children as young as 13 are been smuggled from south-east Asia to work as “slaves” for gangs in dangerous conditions, being kept captive in towns and suburbs across the UK. They believe there has been a five-fold increase in the trade in the past 12 months.

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Wed 05 Sep 2007

China targets human trafficking after kiln scandal

BEIJING (Reuters) - China, rocked by a brick kiln child slavery scandal, plans to set up a national panel to stop human trafficking, aimed at protecting women and children from forced labor and prostitution, state media reported on Tuesday.

The joint panel, made up of 21 government ministries, would try to find solutions and report directly to the State Council, China’s cabinet, the report said, citing the Ministry of Public Security.

“The number of such cases is rising,” the China Daiy quoted the ministry’s Yin Jianzhong as saying, referring to forced labour and sexual exploitation.

China was rocked this year by the exposure of a massive slavery and child labor scandal that saw hundreds of farmers, teenagers and some children forced to work in scorching brick kilns, enduring beatings and prison-like confinement.

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Tue 04 Sep 2007

UN urges more action against human trafficking in southern Africa.

The UN is urging countries in southern Africa to pass legislation against human trafficking, a crime which is reaching frightening proportions in the region. “None of the countries in southern Africa has specific anti-human trafficking legislation in place,” Thomas Zindl-Cronin of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in Johannesburg.
“South Africa and Mozambique are more advanced than the rest of the region, but the capacity of the police and the judiciary to deal with the problem is low.”
The lack of legislation and police capacity is leading many people to fear that human trafficking will increase significantly during the 2010 football world cup in South Africa.
To read more about this and related subjects, please visit www.africasia.com.

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