By HENRY SANDERSON
The Associated Press
Friday, December 14, 2007; 7:54 AM

BEIJING — Cross-border human trafficking for forced labor and prostitution is a growing problem along China’s southern border, officials said Friday at a conference on the issue.

Greater cooperation among the various countries will be needed to fight the problem and track criminal gangs dealing in humans, officials from China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam said on the final day of the conference.

China uncovered 2,500 cases of human trafficking last year, and most involved criminal gangs, Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security Zhang Xinfeng said.

Zhang said the number of cross-border cases was still small at about 100. But he added the trend was for that “to grow and we need to further strengthen our cooperation and carry out further joint actions to combat this tendency.”

A lack of reliable data makes it a difficult problem to tackle, and most of the information mainly comes from those who have been arrested and caught.

Representatives from the six countries that first reached agreement on human trafficking in 2004 met in Beijing this week to sign a declaration aimed at ending the problem.

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MUMBAI: The 30-year-old son of a restaurant owner here has been arrested by the Crime Branch in connection with a human trafficking racket being investigated by it, police said on Wednesday, taking the total held in the case to six.

Asif Farroque Kadawala, who’s father owns the popular ‘Tava’ restaurant in suburban Bandra, was arrested late Tuesday evening in connection with the racket in which an air-hostess has also been held earlier along with four others.

Kadawala allegedly applied for a US visa along with a woman and her child stating that the latter was his wife.

“He applied for the visa on his own passport but was acting as a carrier for the woman and her kid. The woman and the kid’s passports were made using forged documents to state that she was his wife,” said a senior police officer.

Kadawala had earlier visited various countries like UK, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Thailand due to which securing a US visa for his “family” would have been easier.

Kadawala has been booked for forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy and was on Wednesday remanded in police custody till December 14 by a local court.

Read More Here in The Times of India

SACRAMENTO — California is a top destination for human traffickers who coerce people into the sex trade or hard labor through force or fraud, according to an 18-month government study released Tuesday.The report by a 19-member task force of the California Alliance to Combat Trafficking and Slavery says California is particularly vulnerable to human trafficking because of its international border, ports and airports; its booming immigrant population; and a large economy that includes industries that attract forced labor.

The problem goes far beyond the sex trade, with migrant farm and construction workers, household employees and workers in motels, restaurants and clothing factories frequently vulnerable to abuse, task force members said.

The report, required by a 2005 state law, cites research by the U C Berkeley Human Rights Center. From 1998 to 2003, university researchers found 57 forced labor operations in nearly a dozen California cities involving more than 500 people from 18 countries. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose were centers for the problem.

Researchers say 80 percent of the victims are female, and half are children. The federal government says human trafficking is second only to the drug trade as an international criminal industry.

“We don’t have chains, but the traffickers use coercion and fear” to keep people from fleeing, said a 35-year-old woman who said she was lured from Puebla, Mexico, to a Los Angeles sweatshop in 2002.

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AP: Don Thompson

There are hundreds of homes on Long Island where immigrants, especially women, are held in conditions that approach slavery, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said Friday at a human trafficking conference.

And many of those who end up working long hours for little or no pay, or who are forced into sex slavery, are lured to the United States by unscrupulous people who promise safe, well-paid jobs, Spota said.

On Long Island, most of the victims of human trafficking come from Mexico or Eastern Europe, Spota said. They come for a better life, but find slavery, he said.

At the conference, several law enforcement and civic organizations said that they plan to work together to crack down on human trafficking in the region, armed with recent state and federal laws that include tougher penalties.

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