Posts Tagged ‘Human Trafficking’

Children in Umtata, South Africa show the 'Red Card' to human trafficking.

Have you gotten caught up in the excitement of the 2010 World Cup? Are you soaking up each match as nations battle it out in the Group Stage, vying for a coveted spot to progress to the second round? Have you immersed yourself in World Cup trivia and player stats and even learned about South African culture (with your vuvuzela in hand)?

Whether you’re actively following the soccer games or just happen to catch headlines splashed across the news, almost everyone is at some degree aware of the global rivalry playing out across our TV screens.

At The Salvation Army, many of us have also enjoyed watching the games in our spare time – I was more than just a little happy to see the United States tie with England on Saturday! But The Salvation Army’s interest in the games extends beyond a mere competitive spirit.

The Salvation Army has been working in the communities of South Africa since 1883 to provide feeding programs, homes for babies and children with HIV/Aids, shelters for homeless people, community development projects, and much more.

But of more recent concern surrounding the 2010 World Cup is an increase in human trafficking. This, unfortunately, is many times an unintended consequence of major sporting events which draws a huge influx of tourists and an immense demand for sexual services. Additional factors specific to South Africa also contribute, including widespread poverty and relaxed visa requirements.

The Salvation Army is passing out 'Red Cards' at the 2010 World Cup as a part of our anti-trafficking campaign.

Therefore, The Salvation Army Southern Africa Territory has been working tirelessly for more than a year to ramp up their anti-trafficking campaign in anticipation of the 2010 World Cup. Its focus is twofold: Prevention and Awareness.

• Prevention: The Salvation Army is hosting Holiday Clubs and soccer clinics to keep children off the streets, providing them a safe place where they will be less vulnerable to fall prey to traffickers.  Safe houses for women and children are also available.
• Awareness: The Salvation Army has spent the past year and a half educating communities on the threat of trafficking through conversation and teaching. We also launched a toll free number 08000-RESCU (73728), which is a hotline for both victims of trafficking as well as a platform for community members with ‘tips’ about trafficking in their neighborhood.

In addition, we are handing out ‘Red Cards’ warning against trafficking, as well as advertising our message on soccer balls, vuvuzelas, and water bottles.

The Salvation Army Southern Africa Territory is also engaged in other outreach activities during the games, including street ministry, soccer clinics, Kids Clubs, and their usual community programs.

To learn more about how The Salvation Army is working to assist South Africans and make the 2010 World Cup safer for everyone, click HERE.

You can also visit The Salvation Army Southern Africa Territory’s website at http://www.salvationarmy.org.za/.

Our featured guest blogger Lisa Thompson, The Salvation Army’s Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking, shares insight into human trafficking and practical ways The Salvation Army is fighting it:

The Olympics provide the world with an opportunity to be inspired by the noblest attributes of human nature.  Via the Olympics the world community witnesses incredible feats of endurance, strength, bravery, and beauty, achieved by athletes’ whose discipline and determination is virtually unrivaled in other sectors. These flashes of brilliance and achievement do our hearts good as we seek bright spots in a world filled with troubles and tragedies.

One of those global tragedies is the phenomenon of sexual trafficking—the process by which women and children are procured for and exploited within the commercial sex industry. Sadly, sexual trafficking tarnishes the even the alabaster gleam of events like Olympics. How is this?

Anti-trafficking activists explain that major sporting events such as the Super Bowl, World Cup, World Series, and even the Olympics create a major influx of spectators—spectators who are predominantly male. Many of these spectators are simply there to enjoy great sport. Unfortunately, others among them add making sport of women and children—that is buying sex within the local commercial sex industry—to their list of “recreational” activities. The demand at these events for sexually available women and children is so great that pimps (i.e. sex traffickers) frequently move their “merchandise” to host cities in order to take advantage of the boom in the sex market.

For instance, the 2006 World Cup Games were hosted by Germany. German officials in what amounted to a virtual partnership with brothel owners, pimps and traffickers, rushed to accommodate the trade in women by facilitating the construction of mega-brothels as well as temporary “sex huts.” Some cities hosting the games issued special permits for street prostitution. In the U.S, the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking and many others have joined forces to identify potential victims of sexual trafficking during the Super Bowl. In 2009 they provided 13 leads, one of which resulted in the “Treasure Island” case in St. Petersburg, Florida, the arrest of six pimps, as well as the rescue of four domestic victims.

The Olympics too share this unfortunate link. For instance in 2003, Iceland’s National Olympic Committee  criticized Athens’ plans to allow more brothels during the 2004 summer games in order to cope with the anticipated extra demand for commercial sex.

In light of the link between major sporting events and sexual trafficking, many nongovernmental organizations are responding with public awareness campaigns. Such campaigns are meant to sensitize communities to the reality of the sports and commercial sex connection, as well as the incalculable toll that one person’s so-called “recreation” exacts on those who are purchased for sex.

The Salvation Army in Canada was among those at the 2010 Vancouver games doing outreach to help prevent sexual trafficking. The Salvation Army Canada coordinated several teams near Olympic venues and in downtown Vancouver. These teams distributed anti-trafficking postcards to passersby and engaged people in conversation. Major Winn Blackman told me that, “The postcards and the message are attacking the demand side of things so the majority of the public are supportive. We have also managed to get up posters and billboards across the Lower Mainland. We also were able to get spots for our public service announcements on major TV stations including CTV which is the official broadcasting station.”

While much more needs to be done to reduce demand for commercial sex and ergo sexual trafficking at sporting events (as well as in society at-large) it is through efforts such as these that we can hope that the luster of the Olympic Games will one day be returned to its full shine.

- Lisa Thompson
Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking
The Salvation Army National Headquarters

For more information about The Salvation Army’s role in combating human trafficking, visit our national website.

Timea shares her account of being lured and deceived by human traffickers to move from Hungary to Canada for false promises of a job when she was 20 years old.

The 2010 Winter Olympic games have attracted millions of people from around the globe and within Canada to gather in beautiful Vancouver, where the strength and skill of renowned athletes will be displayed for all the world to see. As inspiring and challenging as this historic event is, there are those who are sinisterly capitalizing on the population influx through a vicious, deceitful underground market of  human trafficking.

Initially, many of us might assume that such human rights violations would only exist in third world countries, or maybe under an oppressive government that turns a blind eye, but that is far from the truth. And massive events such as The World Cup or the Olympics are ripe venues for exploitation by traffickers. The Future Group, a leading anti-human trafficking organization, found that there was a 95% increase (almost double) in the number of human trafficking victims at the Athens Olympics, where  prevention efforts were poor.

To raise awareness of and combat this form of modern day slavery, The Salvation Army in Canada has launched  their bold  “The Truth Isn’t Sexy” campaign as tourists, and traffickers, flood Vancouver.

Their ads and website helps break down misconceptions of trafficking and offers practical ways of how not only is the Salvation Army helping, but how individuals can help as well. Perhaps the most striking piece of information I found from their site online was a simple video of a Hungarian woman sharing her personal account of being entrapped in the trade. 20 year-old Timea was lured from Hungary when, being short on rent, she answered a newspaper ad and interviewed for a well-paying housekeeping job in Canada. Once arriving overseas, she quickly learned everything she had been told was a lie and spent months enduring forced prostitution in a place where she knew no one to reach out to for help, or much less speak the language to know how to ask for help! Her plight reveals the depth of the depravity of traffickers and breaks down preconceived notions of how people become ensnared.

Also, The Globe and Mail featured an editorial by Lorna Duecke that discusses the ugly reality of trafficking in Canada surrounding the Olympic events, and The Vancouver Observer also discussed some visible symptoms in the country.

Through media exposing this issue and campaigns like that of The Salvation Army, the first step in combating human trafficking is making people aware that human trafficking EXISTS today, and it exists in cities like Vancouver, and it exists right under our noses even at wholesome events that we attend or watch like the Olympics.

As Timea pleads in the video of her account, it is important to be educated and to take the time to THINK and process situations that may seem off, and then do something about it, whether it be supporting an organization that fights trafficking or alerting an authority if you see something suspicious.  Albert Einstein said, “The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look on and do nothing.” Though appearing harmless, ignorance and passivism are perhaps the greatest trafficking enablers.

As a result of Haiti’s recent earthquake, there are many obvious threats survivors must face in the aftermath, such as malnutrition, dehydration, lack of shelter, and rampant disease.

But there is another enemy less obvious to the naked eye far that’s far more sinister than these afflictions – human trafficking.

In the wake of natural disasters, the breakdown of rule of law, extreme poverty, and increased vulnerability all contribute to a surge in human trafficking, especially targeted towards young children who are the most vulnerable of the population.

Haiti is no exception. Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN in an interview that child trafficking is one of the country’s most significant problems, even without the added stresses caused by the earthquake. It is estimated that every year a quarter million children are reported trafficked within the country.

Now, as the country struggles to rebuild, children face an even greater risk of being sold for sex, slave labor, or their organs.

Prime Minister Bellerive says many culprits pose as organizations falsely claiming to want to save children from the streets and send them to the United States. He is working to register displaced children in Haiti so that the government can account for the children and return them to their relatives if they have any or place them with new families. Trafficking dangers are another reason why Haiti is thoroughly verifying adoption papers before orphans leave the country.

The Salvation Army has been named the lead agency of some 20,000 homeless Haitians living in make-shift shelters and tents near our main compound in Port-au-Prince. As a part of serving as lead agency, we are registering individuals and families settled in this area, in part, to help battle the exploitation of children and vulnerable individuals. The Salvation Army is also rapidly dispensing food, water, supplies, and medical treatment; re-opening schools closed by the earthquake; and offering church-related activities and services in a safe setting in efforts to rebuild and secure the devastated communities.

For more information on how The Salvation Army is working specifically to eradicate human trafficking, visit our national website at www.salvationarmyusa.org/trafficking.