Rescuing Ghana's Enslaved Children

Looking for a ray of hope today, and found one in the story of Mark, a six-year old West African boy who finds himself freed from the chains of slavery, and the brutal half-life of servitude in a Ghana fishing village on the shores of Lake Volta.

Back in October 2006, the New York Times ran a news item on the diabolical relationship between poverty and slavery in modern-day Africa, how desperately hungry parents sell their own children into cruel bonded labor in order to lessen the burden on the rest of the family. A six-year old boy named Mark put a human face on the practice; he carried such a haunted look that one of the reporters said she was struck by how he never smiled.

And no wonder; these boys' young lives, dodging alligators, eels and entangled fishing nets, are the stuff of nightmares:

A dozen boys, interviewed in their canoes or as they sewed up ratty nets ashore, spoke of backbreaking toil, 100-hour workweeks and frequent beatings. They bore a pervasive fear of diving into the lake’s murky waters to free a tangled net, and never resurfacing.
One 10-year-old said he was sometimes so exhausted that he fell asleep as he paddled. Asked when he rested, another boy paused from his net mending, seemingly confused. “This is what you see now,” he said.
...
The children’s sole comfort seems to be the shared nature of their misery, a camaraderie of lost boys who have not seen their families in years, have no say in their fate and, in some cases, were lured by false promises of schooling or a quick homecoming.

One person who read the NY Times article that day was Pam Cope, a mother who had channeled her grief over the loss of her 15-year old son towards financing orphanages and family health shelters in Vietnam and Cambodia, through their Touch A Life Foundation . Her and her husband Randy immediately took the initiative to contact the Times reporter on the story, and through her reached some people in Ghana who were in a position to make a difference. The Copes family, assisted by family and friends, raised enough money to free Mark and six other children from their hopeless lives of misery, giving them hope for a better future right in time for Christmas.

Working with a small Ghanaian charity, Mrs. Cope paid $3,600 to free the children and found them a new home in an orphanage near Accra, the capital.
After years of privation, the children were dumbstruck by the plentiful breakfast served at the orphanage, caregivers there said.
...
Few of the children had had any schooling. All now attend school.
When Mrs. Cope visited in January, she found Mark Kwadwo a transformed child — reveling in piggyback rides, spaghetti and his new school uniform.
“To hear him giggle,” she wrote by e-mail, “was priceless.”

"Jantsen's Gift: A True Story of Grief, Rescue and Grace", the book that Pam Cope wrote to bring her organization's hopeful story to the attention of others, was in the news again recently when it touched the lives of a vacationing St-Louis couple who also were prompted into immediate action:

“Jason began reading it, and every couple of pages he was saying, ‘Oh, my God, Jen, listen to this!’ He read it in 24 hours,” Jennifer said. “I read it within the next 24 hours.”
...
“After we read the book, it wasn’t ‘should we go to Ghana?’ It was ‘when are we going to Ghana?’” Jennifer said.
...
In August the Hackmanns boarded a plane in New York and flew to Accra, the capital of Ghana, with 37 other Touch A Life volunteers, who paid their own way....

Touch A Life works with George Achibra, a Ghanaian who has worked since 2000 to free children there. Volunteers work at freeing the children, yet they offer the masters no money.
Paying for the release of children likely would provide more incentive to continue the practice and make slavery there more lucrative.
“When you are negotiating the release of one of the children, you are doing it by making them feel bad,” Jennifer said. “You guilt them into it.”
...
So far, 69 children have been rescued, Newton said. Those include three children, ages 9 to 11, that Jason and the others helped free on their trip.
“One of the kids had been a slave since he was four years old,” Jason said. “I thought that kid would never smile again. He had the look of hopelessness. Two days after we rescued him, he had a smile on his face and he is happy.”
The children are not reunited with their parents, for fear they would be sold again, but live and are educated at two village camps, depending on their age.
Jennifer is back in Ghana this week and called Jason at his office Nov. 17. While they were on the phone, Teeteh, one of the boys Jason helped rescue, came up to her and asked, “Is that my father who rescued me?”
Touch A Life, which has an annual operating budget approaching $400,000, works not only to rescue children but also to make them self sufficient through strategies such as micro-financing, providing them with small loans to start businesses. “We work with Ghanaians in the country who know what they need,” Newton said. The foundation has been funded solely through donations, though it is preparing to apply for its first government grant, Newton said.
Another effort is to convert the fishermen to what is called sustainable aqua-culture, basically fish farms, using cages and ponds. “You get a better product, and you don’t have to use child labor,” Newton said.
As for the Hackmanns, they said they have made a commitment to see this through.
“People think, ‘Africa? It’s hopeless.’” Jason said.

“But this is 7,000 kids, not 7 million. This can be done.”

Child Chained In Plain Sight, Rescued From Delhi Restaurant

India: A child trafficked from his native village of Sehjana Kaparanda in the Katihar district of Bihar has been rescued from two months of being kept shackled to his post in a Delhi roadside restaurant.

The boy's father had been searching for his missing boy for weeks, having learned that a fellow villager had trafficked the child to India's capital city, Delhi. Having come so close, he was still far from finding, and rescuing, his son, as the local bureaucracy paid little attention to his pleas for assistance, sending him on a fruitless merry-go-round of visits to police station after police station. It's hard to imagine the degree of despair and grief that must have afflicted the father at this time; even after receiving a tip on the restaurant holding his son captive, he was not able to melt the government's icebound bureaucratic indifference. His son remained in chains.

Thankfully, the case came to the attention of the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) ["Save The Childhood Movement"], a private Indian organization dedicated to freeing India's children from bonded labor. The BBA have rescued over 70,000 children from slavery since the group's founding in the 1980s. Their experience allowed them to navigate the sea of red tape and got the father's complaint filed with the appropriate child labor agency, resulting in a rescue operation mounted against the restaurant and its heartless owner.

The indifference met by the desperate father is nothing compared to what the son witnessed during his captivity:

“I was working in this Dhaba for last 3 months. One day, he accused me of stealing Rs. 50,000 from his home and started torturing me physically. A fortnight ago, he decided to tether me with iron chains. I could move in the radius of one metre only and worked for more than 15 hours a day without any protection from the cold weather. Police personnel kept coming to the Dhaba and mocked at me. There is a mosque just opposite, even the people saw me like this everyday after their morning and evening prayers. Nobody came for my rescue”.

BBA's Chairperson, Professor Rama Shankar Chaurasia, draws a sobering conclusion from the child's rescue:

“A child found chained in the heart of national capital is a serious issue. It goes on to show how little concern we have for children of our society..."

It staggers the imagination to think that police officers in India's capital city can see a child wearing these shackles, and their reaction is... to mock him??

[Image courtesy of BBA's news report on the story]

[UPDATE: Some background to the rampant corruption stalling efforts to free India's slaves provided by Youngbee Kim at the Northfolk Human Rights Examiner]

President Obama Declares January "National Slavery And Human Trafficking Prevention Month"

President Barack Obama proclaims February 1st shall be "National Freedom Day", and January shall be "National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month".

The United States was founded on the principle that all people are born with an unalienable right to freedom -- an ideal that has driven the engine of American progress throughout our history. As a Nation, we have known moments of great darkness and greater light; and dim years of chattel slavery illuminated and brought to an end by President Lincoln's actions and a painful Civil War.
Yet even today, the darkness and inhumanity of enslavement exists. Millions of people worldwide are held in compelled service, as well as thousands within the United States. During National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, we acknowledge that forms of slavery still exist in the modern era, and we recommit ourselves to stopping the human traffickers who ply this horrific trade.

As we continue our fight to deliver on the promise of freedom, we commemorate the Emancipation Proclamation, which became effective on January 1, 1863, and the 13th Amendment, which was sent to the States for ratification on February 1, 1865. Throughout the month of January, we highlight the many fronts in the ongoing battle for civil rights -- including the efforts of our Federal agencies; State, local, and tribal law enforcement partners; international partners; nonprofit social service providers; private industry and nongovernmental organizations around the world who are working to end human trafficking.

The victims of modern slavery have many faces. They are men and women, adults and children. Yet, all are denied basic human dignity and freedom. Victims can be abused in their own countries, or find themselves far from home and vulnerable. Whether they are trapped in forced sexual or labor exploitation, human trafficking victims cannot walk away, but are held in service through force, threats, and fear. All too often suffering from horrible physical and sexual abuse, it is hard for them to imagine that there might be a place of refuge.

We must join together as a Nation and global community to provide that safe haven by protecting victims and prosecuting traffickers. With improved victim identification, medical and social services, training for first responders, and increased public awareness, the men, women, and children who have suffered this scourge can overcome the bonds of modern slavery, receive protection and justice, and successfully reclaim their rightful independence.

Fighting modern slavery and human trafficking is a shared responsibility. This month, I urge all Americans to educate themselves about all forms of modern slavery and the signs and consequences of human trafficking. Together, we can and must end this most serious, ongoing criminal civil rights violation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim January 2010 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month, culminating in the annual celebration of National Freedom Day on February 1. I call upon the people of the United States to recognize the vital role we can play in ending modern slavery, and to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities.

Let's hope this proclamation is not just posturing political theater, but the first step in an effective attempt at curtailing a growing evil.

Slave Patrol Surgeon's Diary Found In Scotland

In the second half of the 19th Century the ships of the British Royal Navy patrolled the world's seas in an ernest attempt to stop the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Much of their valiant labor seems lost to history, good deeds being more easily forgotten than wicked ones, it seems.

Today we tend to only remember that the trade existed, forgetting that people were also trying to stop it.

Our historical amnesia may get a needed jolt by the recent discovery of a 400-page diary. The journal belonged to doctor Richard Carr McClement, an Irish assistant surgeon who served aboard six Royal Navy ships patroling West Africa between 1857 and 1869.

In that capacity he became an eye-witness to the vicious cruelty that seems to always follow in the wake of the evil that is slavery. Researcher Dr Karly Kehoe describes what she's found in her preliminary readings of McClement's journal:

“As a surgeon working on the west African patrol, Mr McClement was called upon to assess the health of slaves whenever a slaver captured a slave. You get a sense by the way he writes that he was touched by the sheer human misery. He couldn’t really believe what he was seeing. He would have seen extreme poverty in Ireland having lived there during the famine, and would have known about discrimination, but this was all of a different order.”

The report from Scotland's Sunday Herald contains an except from McClement's journal entry for January 7, 1861, revealing the horrible scene waiting for him when he boarded the intercepted slave ship the Clara Windsor:

9am went on board the Clara Windsor. It would be utterly impossible to describe the sight which presented itself to us when we first went on board, and it would be equally difficult for any one who had not seen it, to comprehend the amount of misery, the suffering and the horrors, that were contained within the wooden walls of that little craft.

The ship is about 250-tons burden, and has her slave deck running right fore and aft, which is about three feet in height. The stench from the vessel is so great, that even at the distance of 200 yards to leeward it is almost insufferable.

When I went on board, the majority of the slaves were on the upper deck, mostly squatting in rows, each row sitting between the legs of the one behind it.

On the foetid, sloppy and sickening slave deck were to be seen the remainder, consisting of men, women, and, children, huddled together; some emaciated to skeletons; some lying sick and heedless of all around; and, some on the point of passing into another world, where it would be hard to imagine they could suffer more than they had done in this; men and women lay promiscuously, some lying on their faces, some on their backs; and, the more enfeebled sat with their heads resting on the knees.

All were naked and had their skins besmeared with the filth in which they lay. On the upper deck were to be seen slaves of all ages from 30 years downwards; here also men, women and children lay or sat promiscuously and presented the same appearances as those on the slave deck. A skeleton woman – quite naked – might be seen in a dying state, with an infant sucking the already half dead breast, while adjoining might be seen another apparently dead; her shrivelled breasts showed that her milk had long since gone, yet a starving baby held the nipple in its mouth and struggled hard to obtain what man’s cruelty had robbed it of.

Here, indeed might be seen a specimen of that affection which nature implants in the bosom of woman, for her children, and, which, would show that the civilised and uncivilised possess it alike. In every case of misery, and where the woman was even senseless, or, apparently dead, or dying, her little baby was firmly clutched to her bosom as if it were the only tie that held her to life.

Washington DC: Sex Slaves For Sale In Freedom's Capital City

Washington DC TV news station WJLA reports on a 19-year old woman recently freed from a life of sexual slavery in neighboring Anne Arundel County, and the difficulties involved in fighting sex trafficking even in the nation's capital:

'Alana' says she could not see a way out "because (she) was all the way out here, with no family, no money."
Experts say traffickers use that financial and psychological dependence to control the girls -- along with drugs and alcohol.
"And the next thing they know, it's like brick after brick and suddenly they're stuck behind this wall of exploitation," said Andrea Powell, the director of Fair Fund, a non-profit group that works with girls like Alana.
Powell says D.C. found 35 teen victims of commercial sexual exploitation last year, which is just the tip of the iceberg.
...
[U.S. Attorney for Maryland Rod Rosenstein] says the Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force was formed to combat the problem.
Accused traffickers are prosecuted under federal laws, which are tougher than state
laws. And law enforcement says it's important to recognize young girls as victims, instead of criminals.
"We don't want to take these 14-, 15-, 16-year-old girls and lock them up in jail," Rosenstein said. "It's not going to create the relationship that we want to develop with them so they'll work with us in prosecuting perpetrators of the trafficking violations."
Alana eventually broke free from prostitution. She has a job now and is considering
going back to school.
But she wants the world to know: "If you see girls outside late at night and you're wondering why are they outside and why are they dressed like that, sometimes it's not they're own choice, it's not their own fault," she said.

Video version of the story available here.

An unrelated report from NPR on under-age girls being sexually exploited in Washington DC, just blocks from the White House, how they are tattooed as a sign of ownership by their exploiters, and the shelter being established as a refuge for girls trafficked into the capital, can be heard here: Survivor Battles DC Teen Trafficking.

Washington DC is the capital of the free world, and it is outrageous to discover that the chains of modern-day slavery even extends there... establishing that it truly is everywhere.

New Year's Wish: Let There Be Peace

Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me...

Enslaved Children Freed From Russian Factory

The following story may sound like it's lifted from the plot of a horror film, but news reports like this one from Russia are, sadly, all too common.

Immigrant children forced to work as slave labourers in an illegal clothes factory near Moscow have been freed in a police operation.

Fifteen minors from Kyrgyzstan had their documents taken away and were made to work day and night under 24-hour guard.

On a diet of bread and mayonnaise, they were punished for disobeying orders or refusing to man the sewing machines in the windowless cellar of an industrial complex in Noginsk, not far from the Russian capital.

The youngsters, all aged between 11 and 17, were recruited from poor families.

Parents were told the children would receive fair pay and be provided with appropriate accommodation. Instead they lived in squalor in the heat and dust of the factory floor.

Several adult Kyrgyz nationals were arrested in the police raid.

For every child rescued, we wonder: how many remain to be found?

Inspiring Example Set By Illinois Teens

An inspiring story to rekindle one's belief in the possibility of a hopeful future, to balance the depression and pessimism that the perennial bad news of the scope of modern-day slavery tends to bring upon us, story after story tempting us to say "nothing can be done".

Well, here's news of a group of US high school students who seem to have declared that they will make a difference, by launching a program to fight Human Trafficking.

The Illinois students took the initiative to organize an outreach event for their fellow students and other members of their community, to "educate and motivate them to action".

The students arranged for a screening of the human trafficking documentary "At The End Of Slavery: The Battle For Justice In Our Time"; distribution of information about charities such as Free2Play, which helps children who have been victims of trafficking and/or forced labor; manning tables selling fair trade coffee and teas acquired through the organization Trade As One, which help the poorer citizens of nations plagued with slave labor to a degree hard for us to imagine in North America.

Also on the agenda was a presentation by North Park University Professor Boaz Johnson, on his first-hand experiences of seeing the prevalence of slavery in India. Professor Johnson mentioned how inspiring it was to see the young people in action, which brings the story full circle, as it was an earlier talk by Johnson himself which inspired the high school students to investigate what they could do to make a difference, and dare to believe that they could break the chains of slavery.

Pakistan's Bonded Laborers Sell Their Own Kidneys To Escape Debts

Pakistan's modern-day slavers ensnare their workers under so much debt, that the bonded laborers are resorting to selling their kidneys through illegal transplant operations in desperate bids to escape their servitude. It is estimated that three quarters of the country's annual 2,000 kidney operations are illegal, and horrifically exploitative:

Millions of Pakistanis live in bonded labour. Some sell kidneys in the hope of paying back cash advances from landlords and freeing themselves from their modern-day slavery.

Bones jutting out of his skin, Mohammad Ilyas became the fourth person in a family of 11 to sell a kidney in an effort to pay off a loan near Islamabad.

‘I saw a big bucket full of knives, cutters and scissors... I got scared. I thought about running away but all the doors were locked and I was surrounded by half a dozen men who were about to cut my body,’ he said.

Debt bondage is said to be a major problem in Pakistan's carpet weaving, and brick-making, businesses:

In Pakistan, human rights groups say kiln owners often dupe the poor into bonded labor by giving them loans. Families agree to work off the debt but their bosses add on high interest and living expenses, making it impossible to repay debt, as their salaries are often less than $5 a day.

Holy Night: "Chains Shall He Break..."

John Sullivan Dwight (1813-1893): Unitarian minister, Transcendalist, music critic,
abolitionist.

Here's a fresh look at a piece of wondrous, classic Christmas music:
O Holy Night.

Originally a french composition by Placide Cappeau, it was translated into english in by a man who shared the frenchman's deep-rooted abolitionist sentiments. As far back as 1837 Dwight had been preaching against slavery, delivering sermons on the great evil in-between more tranquil moments spent translating poetry by Goethe and Schiller. And there was music, always music: Dwight went on to publish, for four decades, the influential Journal Of Music: A Paper On Art And Literature.

In 1855 he is said to have first published his translation of Cappeau's French piece, "Minuit, Chretiens" ["Midnight, Christians"]. Today, we stop short from singing the piece in its original form... even though the Christmas wish expressed in its second half still applies in our time:

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of Our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world In sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd And the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope The weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks A new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts By His cradle we stand.
So led by light of A star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men From Orient land.
The King of Kings Lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials Born to be our friend.

He knows our need, To our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

He taught us To love one another;
His law is love And His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break For the slave is our brother;
And in His name All oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy In grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us Praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.

Uganda Horror: Trafficking Children For Human Sacrifice

Where to begin with this story; police in Uganda are struggling to resolve the growing number of children being abducted and murdered by witchdoctors in ritualistic acts of human sacrifice.

Back in February, the British publication The Independant carried a detailed background report on the unfathomable crime wave. From their interview with Timothy Opobo, programme coordinator with the Ugandan Chapter of the Africa Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN):

“For a long time, sacrificing has been done in secrecy. Child sacrifice centres on witchcraft,” says Timothy Opobo. “Today, sacrificing children appears to be exposed because traditional healers and herbalists are everywhere. So witchdoctors have taken advantage of the traditional herbalists by hiding under that umbrella and have advertised in the media.”
...“Children are vulnerable and are believed to be pure – this is why they are being sacrificed”.

Opobo says that poverty is leading people come to believe they are cursed, that witchdoctors prey on that belief and convince family members to kill their children, and the children of others, in order to relieve themselves of that curse. The article lists a handful of the cases investigated in late 2008:

Shs 50,000 [$26 US, $28 CDN] was enough to tempt Patrick Makonzi to chop the head off his 12-year-old nephew, Eriya Kalule, of Namusita village in Kamuli District on Boxing Day. That same month, a boda-boda cyclist in Masajja, Wakiso district, beheaded his twin children for Shs 12 million [$6,266 US, $6,724 CDN]. In another bizarre case, Ssenoga Setubwa, 21, stole a child from Bwaise and sold him for Shs 100,000 [$52 US, $56 CDN].

The Masajja murderer told Ugandan media outlet The Observer back in August that "a rich man had asked him for his twins in exchange for Shs 50million, a deal Mugerwa agreed to; prompting him to behead the three-year olds."

In this connection, the African news site All Africa reports that Uganda's newest Police Inspector General, Major General Kale Kayihura, has reshuffled the ranks of the police force in order to achieve greater efficiencies in resolving this and other ongoing criminal problems plaguing their nation. Several hundred new cadets are replacing senior officers, in the hope that progress can be made... starting with better policing of law enforcement officers and government officials themselves:

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Kirunda Kivejinja recently said the police report into ritual murders named government workers as some of the people behind the recent spate of ritual murders.

Yet it's not just the poor that are trying to buy their way out of their penury through the ritualistic murder of children.

Throughout 2009 Uganda has witnessed the high-profile court case of "philanthropist" Kato Kajubi, an international businessman accused of organizing the beheading of a 12-year old boy lured away from his poverty-stricken village with promises of better education and a job at Kajubi's chicken farm. The court was told that the murdered boy was the first of three children Kajubi was said to have wanted for his ritual. The 12-year old child's body was later found at the construction site of one of Kajubi's newly-built properties, in fulfillment of some sick superstitution that such placement would herald good luck for the owner by dispelling bad spirits.

Human sacrifice is increasingly being seen as a worthy means to get-rich-quick ends, according to Florence Kirabira, Acting Head of Child and Family Protection Unit:

Some of those obsessed with getting rich quick are ready to do anything, including killing –if that is what the witchdoctor recommends - to reach their goal.
“It’s a difficult and complex situation where children have been sacrificed because of an urge for people to get wealthy. We have people who believe in getting rich [at all costs],” Kirabira says.
According to James Ongom, an investigating officer, 40 children have lost their lives to ritual killings this year alone. Out of these cases, 15 have so far been investigated, but no one has been convicted.

How does one imagine the pain and grief endured in such a place? My heart cries out for victims like this mother of four, who came home from the market only to find her beheaded six-month old baby boy in a plastic bag, murdered by the baby's own father, her 30-year old husband:

“I wanted my son to become an engineer,” she says amid sobs. “I cannot believe that the man I was living with, the father of my children, was the devil.”

[Thanks to Norfolk Human Rights Examiner and Liberia Past and Present for this story]

An Excellent Resource

I'd like to recommend Youngbee Kim's magnificient resource on the evil of human trafficking. Her Norfolk Human Rights Examiner posts for Examiner.com are going to be daily must-reads for me. Every day she diligently assembles a series of links and articles from international stories on the subject of modern-day slavery, with some occasional snowflakes of good news mixed in with the avalanche of bad.

Truth be told, if I had known about her thorough work before, I may not have started my own blog, she does such a good job on bringing some needed attention to the scope of this problem.

If every news site, online or otherwise, devoted resources to tracking local and/or national stories on this subject, think of how much better informed the public would be on this issue.

So get the word out, and visit Youngbee's excellent blog!

Modern-Day Slavers Preying On Famine-Stricken Women And Children In Kenya

Promises coated in the cruelest of lies are luring thousands of victims into lives of modern slavery, as small East African towns shattered by famine and poverty are being visited by human traffickers recruiting women and children for sexual exploitation, turning Kenya into a "notorious transit point" in human cargo fed with false hopes for better lives:

The Kenyan coast has been identified as being a notorious transit point for traffickers where children work as prostitutes and beach boys.
...
Investigations have established that trafficking is now being extended to smaller towns like Samburu, Makueni, Marereni and Ukambani due to famine and poverty.
Other places include areas where victims of the post election skirmishes have pitched tents.
"Unscrupulous people go to these areas and try to provide alternatives for the victims hence trafficking them," says Mr Japheth Kasimbu, IOM counter-trafficking officer.
... [Mr Paul Adhoch, the Executive Director of Trace, a counter trafficking organisation based in Mombasa] says that 6,000 to 9,000 people are trafficked annually in Coast Province with a third of them being children.
"Mombasa is a source, destination and route of trafficking. Individuals, especially girls from as far as Uganda, Tanzania and DR Congo come to Kenya with hopes of linking up with rich tourists but some of them unfortunately turn them into sex slaves," he says.
According to an officer at African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANNAPCAN), an organisation that helps victims of cross-border trafficking at Tarakea, on the Kenya-Tanzania border, trafficking is caused by unemployment.
...
"Brothels and massage parlours have turned to be exploitation dens for foreign young women. Victims are trafficked from Rwanda, Democratic republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia and are coerced to work in these establishments, increasing their vulnerability to sexual exploitation or forced into prostitution," he says.

Rescued Minnesota Slave: Her Story

“Your neighbor could be a slave without you knowing. Your co-worker could be a slave without you knowing. Your patients could be slaves without you knowing."

Bukola Oriola shared her dramatic story with an audience of 140 Minnesotans, in the heart of a state listed as the 13th most heavily trafficked state in the US.

Stories like Oriola's may seem difficult to believe, at first hearing, making it all the more important for the truth to be spread, so that the world can learn:


“We still have slavery among us.”

[Bukola Oriola] was working as a journalist in Nigeria when she came to the United States to report on the 2005 World Summit in New York. Her new husband, a U.S. citizen, convinced her to stay in the country with the promise that he would help her acquire the spousal visa she needed to live here legally.

The couple were married in a traditional ceremony in Nigeria, but not legally in the United States.

Once Oriola moved into her husband’s Minnesota home, he changed. He kept her imprisoned in the house for two years, punishing her if she “misbehaved” and threatening to report her to immigration officials if she tried to escape.

“I became so depressed that I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore,” Oriola said. “I just saw a strange woman staring back at me.”

When she became pregnant, Oriola’s husband forced her to spend up to 14 hours a day on her feet braiding hair. He collected her earnings, but refused to support her or their child. When the baby’s health began to deteriorate, Oriola found the courage to escape.

“My son was the one that gave me strength to leave to see another day,” Oriola said at a Dec. 3 human trafficking forum organized by St. Mary of the Lake in White Bear Lake.

A client helped Oriola and her son move into a shelter. Civil Society, a St. Paul non-profit organization that provides legal services, counseling and other assistance to victims of human trafficking, helped Oriola legalize her immigration status through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act.
...
“I didn’t know that help was available,” she added. “That is why I am speaking out today . . . to educate the public, to set others free.”
Oriola, 32, has written a book entitled “Imprisoned: The Travails of a Trafficked Victim” to help inform people about the little known global phenomenon of human trafficking.

Women Sold As Sex Slaves In Calgary Alberta

The slave next door: Two female sex slaves offered for sale at $5,000 each were purchased for $8,000 as a package deal in Calgary, Alberta, by undercover police posing as aspiring pimps.

Police allege the [case] revealed a human trafficking ring that operated out of three homes and used a hair salon as a front to receive calls from customers and arrange transactions involving sex with young girls for money.
Since September, vice detectives have been working with Canada Border Services Agency, investigating the operation and monitoring Alternative Hair Design at 4105 4th St. N.W.
Undercover officers were offered two teenage girls from China for sale at $5,000 each, police say. The victims, who were sold to the undercover police for $8,000, were actually 25 and 41 years old.
"It's a shocking thing to see humans traded for money, and for a relatively low amount of money," said Supt. Roger Chaffin.
"There's lots of money to be made and there's no limit on lowered morality, the fact that you could sell people for profit," said Chaffin.