A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system.
Trafficked: An international investigation
A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system that allowed it to run a national illegal sex racket.
Human trafficking: Alleged trafficking ring boss Binjun Xie under investigation
‘Repulsive abuses of human rights’: Alleged human trafficking kingpin under investigation
The alleged kingpin of a human trafficking ring is facing deportation after law enforcement agencies launched an investigation into how the criminal syndicate exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system to run a national illegal sex racket.
Binjun Xie, the alleged Sydney-based crime boss at the operation’s centre, was exposed in the Trafficked investigation, a project led by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan’s Revealed that also unveiled allegations of visa rorting, human trafficking and foreign worker exploitation in Australia, including in a booming underground prostitution industry.
Human trafficking is a crime involving the recruitment, transportation, purchase, and/or harboring of anyone by use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of commercial sexual acts (sex trafficking) or forced employment (labor trafficking).
Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), refers specifically to victims under 18 years old, whose bodies or images are bought and sold for sexual purposes.
The International Labor Organization estimates that there are 5 million people trapped in forced sexual exploitation around the world.
Sex trafficking is a lucrative industry making an estimated $99 billion a year.
About 2 million children are exploited every year in the global commercial sex trade.
The truth about trafficking: it's not just about sexual exploitation
Feminist and faith groups define trafficking as forced sex work – a simplification that hinders help for victims of coerced labour
The ILO estimates that worldwide less than a quarter of those in coerced labour are involved in forced sexual exploitation. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wed 24 Oct 2012
Ending "trafficking" is perhaps the most well-known, well-resourced, well-loved social cause of the 21st century that doesn't require its proponents' agreement on what it even is they wish to end. What is "trafficking"? How many people are "trafficked"? Look beyond the surface of the fight against trafficking, and you will find misleading statistics and decades of debate over laws and protocols. As for the issue itself, the lack of agreement on how to define "trafficking" hasn't slowed campaigners' fight. Rather, defining trafficking has become their fight.
Shocking Documentary About Sex Trafficking In America - CONTRALAND Part Two
CONTRALAND is a powerful documentary that educates adults about the evils of sex trafficking in America.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in t…
Due to the increase in technology capabilities, human traffickers have become smarter which has made identifying Human Trafficking red flags even more imperative for Financial Institutions.
There is a common misconception that human trafficking victims are mostly brought to the United States from other countries; however, many victims are U.S. citizens.
Human trafficking prevention should be anyone's business, but the unfortunate truth is that some prefer to look the other way for fear of becoming a part of the investigation.
A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system.
A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system.
Trafficked: An international investigation
A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system that allowed it to run a national illegal sex racket.
Karen was smuggled into Australia from South Korea for sex work, and was sent to a brothel where she was made to work up to 25 hours in a row. She narrowly escaped with her life.
A new taskforce will target criminals exploiting the migration system after revelations of widespread visa rorting, foreign worker exploitation and drug crime.
Binjun Xie, the alleged boss of a human trafficking ring, is now the focus of an investigation by Australian law enforcement agencies and facing deportation.
October 31, 2022 by Lisa Visentin and Lachlan Abbott
Failures of the Immigration and Home Affairs departments have allowed a crime boss to enter and operate in Australia after his release from jail in Britain.
While the Home Affairs Department says legislation exists to prevent worker exploitation, it is clear the measures are either not fit for purpose or are not being applied with the rigour required.
The company got a green light to move money into and out of Australia despite intelligence warnings and the prosecution of a related business in New Zealand.
November 2, 2022 by Nick McKenzie and Amelia Ballinger
A company run by Jack Ta, who boasted of “cosy” dinners with former Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton, has been used by more than a dozen drug offenders to remain in Australia on bogus asylum seeker claims.
November 6, 2022 by Nick McKenzie and Amelia Ballinger
Clare O’Neil says criminals are getting into Australia as corrupt agents, and education institutions help traffic sex slaves and drugs. But legitimate workers can’t find their way through a broken system.
November 6, 2022 by Nick McKenzie and Amelia Ballinger
Up to 100,000 workers have entered Australia using false claims, fuelling fears about illicit labour as the government launches a review of the migration system.
The Australian Federal Police addressed the media in relation to the arrests of nine people alleged to be involved with an international money laundering organisation.
Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has twice been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 14 Walkley Awards, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs, human rights and criminal justice.Connect via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The Australian Federal Police addressed the media in relation to the arrests of nine people alleged to be involved with an international money laundering organisation.
KEY POINTS
Australian Federal Police have charged nine people after smashing an alleged Chinese-Australian money laundering syndicate.
The group allegedly moved an estimated $10 billion out of Australia while amassing a blue-chip property portfolio in Sydney.
Police have seized properties and luxury assets worth at least $150 million.
Two of the charged suspects are alleged Chinese-Australian gangsters in Sydney, with a combined personal fortune estimated at more than $1 billion.
The pair are accused of accumulating wealth by becoming the Australian-based bankers of choice for international drug cartels and wealthy Chinese nationals seeking to circumvent China’s capital-flight laws.
Federal agents have dismantled an alleged Chinese-Australian money laundering organisation that moved an estimated $10 billion offshore while amassing a blue-chip property portfolio comprising Sydney mansions, a luxury city building and hundreds of acres of land near Sydney’s second airport.
On Wednesday, Australian Federal Police officers seized properties and luxury assets worth at least $150 million and arrested and charged nine suspects, including two alleged Chinese-Australian gangsters in Sydney with a combined personal fortune estimated at more than $1 billion.
Federal police arrest a man in Sydney as they dismantle a money-laundering syndicate.CREDIT:AFP
The arrests bring to an end a property-buying spree that one official source said included land purchased for a new Sydney suburb owned and developed by Chinese organised crime near Sydney’s new international airport.
The landmark AFP operation uncovered an industrial-scale shadow-banking organisation that stretched from Australia to Asia, the Caribbean, Switzerland, America and the United Arab Emirates, and which facilitated the purchase of Australian real estate that police sources suggest might be worth billions. The syndicate, alleged to be responsible for the money laundering, was deemed to be such a risk to the national interest it was designated an Australian Priority Organisation Target by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission last year.
The AFP operation, and the fact that the organisation targeted is just one of several large money-laundering syndicates operating in Australia, will raise fresh questions about the role of foreign funds in inflating the nation’s property market and other legislative and policy gaps in the financial and migration systems that continue to be exploited by criminals.
Police have also seized cryptocurrency and are examining how the syndicate used crypto exchanges to transfer tainted funds around the world without drawing the attention of authorities, according to confidential sources with knowledge of the investigation.
One of those arrested, Steven Xin, is the local business partner of fallen global casino industry tycoon, Alvin Chau, who was sensationally jailed in Macau last week after being exposed in Australian media reports and casino commissions of inquiry as having links to money laundering and organised crime.
Xin and his co-accused, Zhaohua Ma, are facing accusations they accumulated their wealth by becoming the Australian-based bankers of choice for international drug cartels and wealthy Chinese nationals seeking to circumvent the Communist Party’s capital-flight laws.
Also arrested and charged in Sydney was a mid-ranking employee of the National Australia Bank, Chen Zhang. Others charged include an accountant and a lawyer.
The NAB worked closely with the federal police and is one of several of the big four banks, along with second and third-tier lenders, to be targeted by the syndicate.
AFP raided several addresses across Sydney’s eastern suburbs on Wednesday.CREDIT:NICK MOIR
Houses bought by syndicate members and seized by the federal police included two luxury homes in Vaucluse and Bellevue Hill with a combined worth of $19 million, a $22 million tower in St Leonards and a $21 million five-storey property adjoining Pitt Street Mall in Sydney. Luxury goods including watches and handbags worth millions of dollars were also confiscated.
Federal agents have also seized a 360-hectare plot of land in Cawdor, near Camden, which Ma bought for $47 million in August. Police intelligence suggests the syndicate had aspirations to develop the land into a small suburb, given its proximity to the planned Western Sydney international airport.
The AFP’s Operation Avarus-Midas – named after the ancient Greek king who in mythology could turn objects into gold – has also cast fresh light on legislative and policy gaps that continue to be exploited by criminals, including weaknesses in the visa and financial system that have turned Australia into a soft target for organised criminals seeking to operate here or invest in real estate.
Police allege the syndicate had a blue-chip property portfolio comprising Sydney mansions, a luxury city building and hundreds of acres of land near Sydney’s second airport.CREDIT:NICK MOIR
The alleged transnational crime organisation, known as the Xin Money Laundering Organisation (MLO), exploited Australia’s migration system, with a senior syndicate figure being granted a significant-investor visa and another receiving Australian citizenship despite being a wanted fugitive. A third suspected syndicate member is a former federal government registered migration agent who facilitates visas for Chinese nationals.
The Albanese government has already appointed former Victorian police commissioner Christine Nixon to investigate the exploitation of Australia’s migration system by criminals, after this masthead and 60 Minutes revealed how human trafficking, worker exploitation and drug syndicates were rorting the nation’s visa programs.
The alleged role of a lawyer and ex migration agent, and, an accountant in the Xin MLO’s operation, as well as its property purchases, will ramp up pressure on the federal government to introduce long-stalled “Tranche 2” laws. The laws would force accountants, real estate agents and lawyers to face the same obligations as bankers and casinos to report suspected money laundering.
The ease with which the syndicate bought property also raises questions about the adequacy of the Foreign Investment Review Board in safeguarding Australian real estate and businesses from tainted overseas money.
Sam Boarder, who runs the national security practice at McGrathNicol Advisory, said the booming operations of transnational organised crime had increased the urgency of proceeding with Tranche 2 reforms to anti-money-laundering laws.
Suburb aspirations: the 360 hectares of land on Cawdor Road was bought by Zhaohua Ma for $47 million in August.
“Criminal syndicates are working around our existing countermeasures”, he said.
“The national security risks from these criminal operations are immense, particularly if entangled with foreign government-backed influence platforms. The democratic world is still coming to terms with these massive flows of ‘grey’ unregulated capital, which distort our real estate markets and introduce vulnerabilities into our economic and financial systems.”
A shadow bank is born
The origins of the Xin MLO lie in tycoon Alvin Chau’s SunCity casino junket business, which gained infamy after this masthead and 60 Minutes exposed its involvement in large-scale money laundering at Australian casinos and its links to the Chinese triads, which are secretive and powerful criminal organisations.
Jewellery was among the luxury items federal police seized. CREDIT: AFP
The media exposure in 2019 and 2020, and subsequent scrutiny by various casino commissions of inquiry, led to the collapse of SunCity’s Australian operations.
But one of SunCity’s key lieutenants, Steven Xin, pivoted from the casino trade to a service that allowed high-wealth Chinese nationals to shift funds into Australia and other attractive overseas investment destinations in defiance of China’s capital-flight laws.
The AFP alleges Xin, who fled China, where he is wanted for running an illegal gambling enterprise, obtained Australian citizenship and partnered with Chinese businessman Zhouhua Ma to provide this service.
The pair won the trust of international drug cartels and other crime syndicates seeking another service: the movement of dirty cash – that was earned in countries such as Australia – to China or other offshore locations.
AFP officers at a home in Vaucluse on Wednesday. CREDIT:NICK MOIR
For a 4 to 10 per cent cut of every dollar moved, the Xin MLO would collect this suspected dirty cash and provide it to its Chinese customers – who did not have access to their Chinese funds – to fund real estate purchases and other acquisitions abroad.
To pay back the syndicate, these customers would then instruct their Chinese bank to transfer the same amount of money to another Chinese bank account or shelf company that was secretly controlled by the Xin MLO.
Police allege these ghost accounts or shelf companies would then move the funds onto the criminal syndicates that had provided the original funds.
The money scheme also utilised casinos, cryptocurrency and daigou businesses to ensure no actual funds crossed international borders, evading international law enforcement detection.
But it was also in breach of Australian counter-money laundering laws, which require all money-moving businesses to register with regulator AUSTRAC or face accusations of moving the proceeds of crime.
Tracking the trail
Operation Avarus-Midas commenced after federal agents working on an earlier money laundering operation, codenamed Zanella, began arresting suspects who were carrying bags stuffed with millions of dollars in cash.
Cash was seized in Operation Avarus-Midas. CREDIT:AFP
Frustrated with their inability to catch more senior syndicate members, police sources said investigators devised a long-term plan to patiently track a money trail to the suspected syndicate’s upper echelons.
While the syndicate engaged in counter-surveillance, including the use of encrypted phone devices, the federal police gradually built a picture of its operations in Australia and overseas.
It meant police were monitoring in February 2022, when a mysterious company called Tara Global Pty Ltd purchased for $21 million a five-storey building at 119 King Street, adjoining Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall.
The company funded the purchase with $7 million sent from two Hong Kong shelf companies to an account set up at the NAB’s Burwood branch by a woman who claimed to be a wealthy Chinese investor. She had reportedly arrived at the bank in a Lamborghini 4WD.
Police allege that the woman who claimed to represent Tara Global was in fact Xin’s mother-in-law and that she was helping Xin and other MLO syndicate members invest their profits in Australian real estate.
This building at 119 King St, Sydney has been seized by the AFP.CREDIT:NICK MOIR
After transferring the $7 million to Sydney, Tara Global then sought further funds from other Australian banks to complete the King Street purchase.
The Commonwealth Bank declined Tara Global’s $11 million loan application as it appeared suspicious, so the figures behind Tara Global contacted an alleged trusted insider at NAB, Chen Zhang. He gave them advice about making a fresh application with another financier, Latrobe Finance.
Police suspect this application was fraudulent. Zhang also allegedly gave the syndicate advice about getting further loans from NAB, but the bank froze Tara Global’s accounts in September.
The MLO was unfazed by the freezing of accounts given they had previously been able to start new accounts and obtain large loans, police sources allege. The case against Xin and his co-accused will allege that companies were routinely wound up and phoenixed into new corporate structures linked to new bank accounts as financial institutions froze existing accounts due to suspicions about the origins of funds.
Federal police have seized cars as they dismantled the syndicate.CREDIT:AFP
AFP Assistant Commissioner Eastern Command Kirsty Schofield described the alleged syndicate and others like it as providing “the lifeblood of organised crime” in Australia and internationally.
“This was a sophisticated, complex syndicate established to facilitate the movement of funds regardless of their origin, purpose or harm caused to the Australian community,” Assistant Commissioner Schofield said.
Most of the nine suspects charged are facing serious money laundering and proceeds of crime offences relating to activity that allegedly took place between 2018 and 2022.
‘A sea of dirty funds’
A unique component of the federal police’s investigation was the behind-the-scenes co-operation of NAB, whose top financial crime investigator is former AFP senior officer Chris Sheehan. Sources said Sheehan and a small team of bank investigators provided the AFP with critical data on the operations’ targets in one of the first examples of a “public-private partnership” in law enforcement. Typically, police have been too suspicious of corporate institutions to work with them.
While the dismantling of the Xin syndicate and freezing of its property assets is significant given it involves the top levels of a major alleged organised crime operation, federal authorities are privately daunted by the scale of money laundering they are facing.
The “Chen Organisation” counts as its customers a relative of Chinese President Xi Jinping, along with Asian triads and bikies, according to briefings from law enforcement officials.
The ability of the syndicates to operate under the noses of the Chinese government has also raised questions about Beijing’s desire to deal with the problem.
Officials in the United States have directly called out Beijing’s failure to combat money laundering trails that flow through Western countries.
Australian authorities, including the AFP, the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, AUSTRAC and the ATO, have recently ramped up efforts to target money laundering, but more than half a dozen sources say they are being hampered by the sheer scale of the problem, inadequate resources and the failure of Beijing to act.
Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has twice been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 14 Walkley Awards, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs, human rights and criminal justice.Connect via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
‘Tough as nails’: Former top cop to helm sex, drug trafficking inquiry Nick McKenzie ByNick McKenzie January 30, 2023
The Australian Federal Police addressed the media in relation to the arrests of nine people alleged to be involved with an international money laundering organisation.
Former Victoria Police chief commissioner Christine Nixon will investigate the endemic rorting of Australia’s migration system by syndicates involved in human and drug trafficking and migrant worker exploitation.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil has commissioned Nixon to investigate serious failings, including resourcing and legislative “gaps and areas of weakness”, within the Home Affairs department, Australian Border Force and migration agents regulator that “have allowed threat actors to enter Australia and exploit our system”.
Brothels across Australia have been linked to trafficking.
While political attention and debate in Australia has for years focused on asylum seekers arriving by boat, the former police chief’s inquiry will cast a light on abuse and exploitation within a part of the migration system the Albanese government has accused the former coalition of neglecting: the hundreds of thousands of overseas temporary visa applicants who arrive by plane.
It follows The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald’s Trafficked series, which revealed in conjunction with 60 Minutes rampant visa rorting by organised criminals to establish crime networks in Australia, aided by government-licensed migration agents and fixers.
Nixon’s terms of reference require her to “identify proposals for both systemic reform and discrete measures to prevent, deter and sanction individuals who seek to abuse Australia’s visa system to exploit vulnerable migrants”.
“Minister Clare O’Neil has commissioned me to undertake a rapid review of Australia’s visa system to identify the weakness in the system, following the very serious allegation aired in the recent ... story,” Nixon said in a statement.
“She is as tough as nails, nothing gets past her. She is the ideal person to work with me to tackle the conditions that allowed these problems to fester.”
Minister Clare O’Neil on Christine Nixon
“I know from a career in policing and law enforcement that criminal organisations and unscrupulous people are always looking for ways to exploit and make money, our migration system is no different.”
Nixon will be able to review intelligence holdings from various departments, interview key officials and report her findings to O’Neil and other ministers.
O’Neil said that following the series, border security officials had already “cancelled visas, turned around people at the border, withdrawn licences from migration agents, and more”. But the minister said Nixon’s appointment was about “looking at the root cause”.
“Christine Nixon will help us understand how this occurred. She is as tough as nails, nothing gets past her. She is the ideal person to work with me to tackle the conditions that allowed these problems to fester for so long,” O’Neil said.
Christine Nixon is a former chief commissioner of Victoria Police
The Australian Border Force-led Operation Inglenook, which was launched after Trafficked, has also cancelled the government migration agent licence of political donor Jack Ta, a visa specialist with migration offices around the nation, and which Trafficked revealed had helped more than a dozen drug offenders to remain in Australia over several years.
Ta had also boasted of “cosy” meals with Coalition ministers and donated more than $25,000 to the campaign fund of former Liberal assistant home affairs minister Jason Wood.
Wood was the chair of parliament’s migration committee when the donations took place and he hosted Ta on at least two occasions to dine with now Opposition Leader Peter Dutton when he was home affairs minister. There is no suggestion that Wood or Dutton were aware that Ta’s firm had been used by drug offenders to remain in Australia or was systemically rorting the migration system.
This masthead has also confirmed that Ta attended the launch for O’Neil’s election campaign when she was a shadow minister and bought items at an auction worth $5200. The funds were donated to a charity after Ta’s conduct was exposed.
Liberal MP Jason Wood, Immigration agent Jack Ta and then-home affairs minister Peter Dutton.
Earlier this month, the Office of the Migration Agents Registration Authority found Ta had “acted with a blatant disregard for … the migration law and the visa programs in general” and “made misleading, deceptive or inaccurate statements and otherwise acted dishonestly”.
OMARA also declared that Ta was “not a person of integrity and not a fit and proper person to give immigration assistance”.
The failure of the Department of Home Affairs to act on years of allegations about Ta’s misconduct is almost certain to be scrutinised by Nixon. Trafficked revealed how state and federal agencies have spent years issuing confidential warnings of migration rorting involving syndicates gaming the visa system to bring criminals or exploited workers into Australia.
Operation Inglenook is also continuing to hunt for human trafficking boss Binjun Xie, who entered Australia despite being jailed for serious criminal activity in the United Kingdom and set up a nationwide underground sex racket. Police intelligence has linked Xie’s syndicate to the exploitation of vulnerable female workers, money laundering and visa fraud.
After Trafficked revealed his operations and criminal past in October, O’Neil moved urgently to cancel his visa and issued a deportation order. But Border Force officials have been unable to locate Xie in Sydney.
“While Peter Dutton was busy talking tough on our borders, a convicted criminal walked straight into our country and set up a human trafficking ring right under his nose,” O’Neil said.
In a statement, the ABF said Operation Inglenook had profiled more than 175 persons of interest “to determine complicity in exploiting the temporary visa program and some 92 foreign nationals are currently of interest to the operation”.
“Action has occurred against known facilitators, including six associates refused immigration clearance, three offshore visa cancellations preventing return travel to Australia as well as other activities that cannot be disclosed for ongoing operational purposes,” the ABF said in a statement.
“It is evident that there is continued exploitation of foreign workers in the sex industry and that exploitation of visa holders is being supported by migration agents, some of whom directly receive a financial benefit including through overcharging.”
O’Neil blamed the rorting of the migration system on the failures of the previous government.
“The abuses highlighted by [the Trafficked series] ... were grotesque, some of the worst crimes imaginable. These cases of worker exploitation, human trafficking and organised crime have all resulted from Peter Dutton’s failure to protect our borders.”
Dutton has dismissed suggestions he failed to safeguard the migration system when he was the responsible minister, but said he would “support any further measures to combat visa fraud”.
Nixon’s inquiry will complement a second review aimed at overhauling visa rules, which is led by former Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson. Parkinson has said it was “indisputable” the migration system was not working.
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Human trafficking is a crime involving the recruitment, transportation, purchase, and/or harboring of anyone by use of force, fraud, or coercion, for the purpose of commercial sexual acts (sex trafficking) or forced employment (labor trafficking). “Commercial” means that there is an exchange of something of value – often this is money but it can also be food, a place to sleep, drugs, clothing, jewelry, or other items. Sexual acts might include physical acts (oral, anal, or vaginal sex) or the exchange of sexual photos/videos, dancing or stripping, sexual massage, or any other situation where someone is profiting off the use of someone else’s body in a sexual manner. In the United States and most other countries it is illegal to exploit a person in this way.
What is commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC)?
Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), refers specifically to victims under 18 years old, whose bodies are bought and sold for sexual purposes. CSEC is a form of human trafficking. In the past, CSEC was referred to as “teen prostitution,” but this term is no longer used because calling it “prostitution” sends a message that the victim is involved willingly in the sexual act, is old enough and mature enough to consent, and has control over their experience. We know this is NOT the case for victims of exploitation.
How does someone become a victim of CSEC or trafficking?
There is no one way that someone becomes a victim of this crime but there are a few common ways that traffickers or exploiters, sometimes called “pimps”, get their victims involved in exploitation.
Many people assume that CSEC victims are kidnapped or taken by force, and the media has reinforced this by showing similar stories on TV and in movies. This does happen sometimes, but more often young people are recruited in to the commercial sex industry by someone they meet who acts like a friend or romantic partner.
The exploiter might start out treating them well but over time start to act in more and more harmful ways, ask them to do things that make them uncomfortable or put them in danger, and eventually ask them to engage in a commercial sex act. This is a process called “grooming”, where the exploiter gains the victim’s trust and then exploits them, often using threats to keep them from seeking help. These can include physical threats, threats to harm or to exploit a family member, or threats to expose what the young person is now involved with.
However, not all exploitation involves these coercive measures. Exploiters may manipulate the young person emotionally to have them believe that they deserve what’s happening, that this is the only thing they’re good at, or that they have no other options. Some victims are involved in exploitative relationships with someone who is offering to meet their basic needs such as food and shelter in exchange for sexual acts.
It is also important to note that some victims are exploited online without ever meeting the exploiter, or are initially exploited online before later meeting their exploiter in person.
What are the signs that someone is a victim of CSEC or trafficking?
It can be challenging to know whether or not someone is a victim of CSEC or trafficking. However, there are several things you can look out for if you’re worried that your child or someone else is being trafficked or exploited.
Changes in behavior- They’re acting different then they usually do.
Missing/absent- They go missing or leave home without an explanation.
Someone has their attention-, They are in a new relationship with someone much older.
New found money or items- They have new things that they can’t afford.
Bad habits-, They start to use alcohol/drugs or use more than they did before.
They simply change-, They stop doing things they used to enjoy such as spending time with friends or going to school.
There can also be physical signs: such as injuries they can’t explain, sexual health issues, clothes that are very different than what they usually wear, or new tattoos they don’t want to talk about.
Finally, there may be changes in the person’s emotional state. They might act scared a lot of the time, be secretive when they used to be more open, seem tired, or just not like themselves. Not everyone will have obvious signs that they are involved in exploitation or trafficking, but there will often be some changes that could mean something dangerous is going on.
Where does human trafficking exist?
Human trafficking takes place all over the world, not just in impoverished countries as popular media would have you believe. Unfortunately the reality is that human trafficking happens everywhere that there are people willing to purchase sex. This means it happens in big cities, small towns, fancy hotels, run-down motels and apartments, office buildings, people’s homes, and more and more it is happening online as well. Access to the internet brings a lot of wonderful opportunities but it also brings occasions to take advantage of vulnerable people. Exploiters may find victims online and exploit them via photos, videos, livestream, or by introducing them to people who want to meet them in person to purchase sex.
Who is impacted by human trafficking? Sex trafficking?
People who recruit others for the purpose of trafficking do not discriminate, targeting children, teens, and adults worldwide. However, exploiters do often target groups of people who are already vulnerable.
A significant risk factor for exploitation is the experience of having already been mistreated as a child. Some young people may have been taught from a young age that they are not worthy of love, or may not know what a healthy relationship looks like. Young people who have been sexually abused are especially vulnerable as exploiters may learn about their trauma and use it to manipulate them in to believing that they deserve what is happening. Young people who are involved in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems are disproportionately victimized by this crime, especially those who may go missing from group care settings or otherwise become homeless.
Marginalized groups are also especially vulnerable to exploitation. In the U.S. more than half of identified victims under 18 are youth of color. Young people who identify as LGBTQ+ are at increased risk for exploitation and exploiters may use their status against them by threatening to expose them if they don’t comply. This is also true for those who are undocumented immigrants or who do not speak a country’s primary language. Exploiters may also target young people who are living in poverty, knowing that the promise of access to money that they or their family need can keep victims from seeking help.
Action Steps:
How can I protect my children against human trafficking?
While becoming involved in human trafficking is never the victim’s fault, here are some tips on ways parents can keep their children safe.
Educate yourself, by simply reading this guide, you are learning about exploitation and the behavior of traffickers. This helps you pinpoint important signs if and when someone tries to manipulate your child. You can read more about human trafficking using the resources at the bottom of this guide.
Teach your children about what to look for in a healthy relationship!
Encourage safe behaviors online, such as teaching your children to avoid sharing personal information and photos of themselves. This alone can help protect them against online exploitation. Be aware of what apps and games your children are using, and know that many apps and games have a chat feature where adults may be trying to communicate with them.
If you believe that your child may be involved and/or a victim of human trafficking, it is important that you contact local authorities immediately. Depending on where you live this likely means contacting the police or possibly child protective services. This does not mean that you have done anything wrong as a parent! Many states will use child protective services to investigate any adult who is causing harm to a child – in this case an exploiter or trafficker. It is also important to contact your child’s health care provider so that your child can have a medical evaluation. This is especially important if you are aware of any harm being done to their body. Resources and supports vary a lot by state/country so look online for agencies in your area that support trafficking survivors. The resources below are a great place to start.
Human Trafficking, also called trafficking in persons, form of modern-day slavery involving the illegal transport of individuals by force or deception for the purpose of labour, sexual exploitation, or activities in which others benefit financially. Human trafficking is a global problem affecting people of all ages. It is estimated that approximately 1,000,000 people are trafficked each year globally and that between 20,000 and 50,000 are trafficked into the United States, which is one of the largest destinations for victims of the sex-trafficking trade.
Although human trafficking is recognized as a growing international phenomenon, one with a long history (see the story of St. Josephine Bakhita, the patron saint of Sudan and of victims of human trafficking), a uniform definition has yet to be internationally adopted. The United Nations (UN) divides human trafficking into three categories—sex trafficking, labour trafficking, and the removal of organs—and defines human trafficking as the induction by force, fraud, or coercion of a person to engage in the sex trade, or the harbouring, transportation, or obtaining of a person for labour service or organ removal. Though the United States does not acknowledge the removal of organs in its definition, it does recognize sex and labour trafficking and describes human trafficking as the purposeful transportation of an individual for exploitation.
The trafficking scheme
Human traffickers often create transnational routes for transporting migrants who are driven by unfavourable living conditions to seek the services of a smuggler. Human trafficking usually starts in origin countries—namely, Southeast Asia, eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa—where recruiters seek migrants through various mediums such as the Internet, employment agencies, the media, and local contacts. Middlemen who recruit from within the origin country commonly share the cultural background of those migrating. Migrants view the services of a smuggler as an opportunity to move from impoverished conditions in their home countries to more stable, developed environments.
Because such circumstances make it difficult for victims to obtain legitimate travel documents, smugglers supply migrants with fraudulent passports or visas and advise them to avoid detection by border-control agents. Transporters, in turn, sustain the migration process through various modes of transportation: land, air, and sea. Although victims often leave their destination country voluntarily, the majority are unaware that they are being recruited for a trafficking scheme. Some may be kidnapped or coerced, but many are bribed by false job opportunities, passports, or visas. Transporters involved in trafficking victims from the origin country are compensated only after they have taken migrants to the responsible party in the destination country. Immigration documents, whether legitimate or fraudulent, are seized by the traffickers. After this, victims are often subjected to physical and sexual abuse, and many are forced into labour or the sex trade in order to pay off their migratory debts.
The cause of human trafficking stems from adverse circumstances in origin countries, including religious persecution, political dissension, lack of employment opportunities, poverty, wars, and natural disasters. Another causal factor is globalization, which has catapulted developing countries into the world’s market, increasing the standard of living and contributing to the overall growth of the global economy. Unfortunately, globalization is a double-edged sword in that it has shaped the world’s market for the transportation of illegal migrants, affording criminal organizations the ability to expand their networks and create transnational routes that facilitate the transporting of migrants. The U.S. Department of State adds that the HIV/AIDSepidemic has generated a large number of orphans and child-headed households, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, a situation that creates fertile soil for trafficking and servitude.
Types of exploitation
The most prevalent form of human trafficking that results in servitude is the recruitment and transport of people into the international sex industry. Sex slavery involves males and females, both adults and children, and constitutes an estimated 58 percent of all trafficking activities. It consists of different types of servitude, including forced prostitution, pornography, child sex rings, and sex-related occupations such as nude dancing and modeling. Forced prostitution is a very old form of enslavement, and recruitment into this lifestyle is often a booming business for purveyors of the sex trade. Victims of sexual slavery are often manipulated into believing that they are being relocated to work in legitimate forms of employment. Those who enter the sex industry as prostitutes are exposed to inhumane and potentially fatal conditions, especially with the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Additionally, some countries, including India, Nepal, and Ghana, have a form of human trafficking known as ritual (religion-based) slavery, in which young girls are provided as sexual slaves to atone for the sins of family members.
Forced labour has likely been around since shortly after the dawn of humankind, though there are a number of different forms of modern involuntary servitude that can go easily unnoticed by the general public. Debt bondage (also called peonage), is the enslavement of people for unpaid debts and is one of the most common forms of contemporary forced labour. Similarly, contract slavery uses false or deceptive contracts to justify or explain forced slavery. In the United States the majority of nonsex labourers are forced into domestic service, followed by agriculture, sweatshops, and restaurant and hotel work.
Children are often sold or sent to areas with the promise of a better life but instead encounter various forms of exploitation. Domestic servitude places “extra children” (children from excessively large families) into domestic service, often for extended periods of time. Other trafficked children are often forced to work in small-scale cottage industries, manufacturing operations, and the entertainment and sex industry. They are frequently required to work for excessive periods of time, under extremely hazardous working conditions, and for little or no wages. Sometimes they become “street children” and are used for prostitution, theft, begging, or the drug trade. Children are also sometimes trafficked into military service as soldiers and experience armed combat at very young ages.
Another recent and highly controversial occurrence involving human trafficking is the abduction or deception that results in the involuntary removal of bodily organs for transplant. For years there have been reports from China that human organs were harvested from executed prisoners without the consent of family members and sold to transplant recipients in various countries. There have also been reported incidents of the removal and transport of organs by medical and hospital employees. In addition, there have been claims that impoverished people sell organs such as kidneys for cash or collateral. Although there have been some allegations of trafficking of human fetuses for use in the cosmetics and drug industry, these reports have not been substantiated. In recent years the Internet has been used as a medium for the donors and recipients of organ trafficking, whether legal or not.
Legal response
Although the practice of trafficking humans is not new, concerted efforts specifically to curtail human trafficking did not emerge until the mid-1990s, when public awareness of the issue also emerged. The first step to eradicating this problem was to convince multiple stakeholders that human trafficking was a problem warranting government intervention. As antitrafficking rhetoric gained momentum, efforts to address human trafficking crossed ideological and political lines. Recognizing the inadequacy of then-existing laws, the U.S. Congress passed the first comprehensive federal legislation specifically addressing human trafficking, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA). The primary goal of the TVPA is to provide protection and assistance to trafficking victims, to encourage international response, and to provide assistance to foreign countries in drafting antitrafficking programs and legislation. The TVPA seeks to successfully combat human trafficking by employing a three-pronged strategy: prosecution, protection, and prevention. Many federal agencies are given the oversight of human trafficking, including the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and Labor and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The primary U.S. agency charged with monitoring human trafficking is the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (also called the trafficking office).
In addition to the U.S., many governmental entities throughout the world are actively engaged in the attempt to stop or at least slow the activity of trafficking in humans. In 2000 the UN established the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which provided a commonly accepted working definition of human trafficking and called upon countries to promulgate laws to combat the practice, to assist victims, and to promote coordination and cooperation between countries.
The Office of Drugs and Crime is the UN arm that monitors and implements policies concerning human trafficking and is the designer of the Global Program Against Trafficking in Human Beings (GPAT). Another important international agency with responsibility in this area is Interpol, whose aims are to provide assistance to all national criminal justice agencies and to raise awareness of the issue. Other involved global organizations include the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Human trafficking is a highly structured and organized criminal activity. The criminal enterprises need to transport a large number of migrants over a substantial distance, have a well-organized plan to execute the various stages of the crime, and possess a substantial amount of money for such undertakings. Human traffickers have developed a multibillion-dollar industry by exploiting those forced or willing to migrate. For this reason, migrant trafficking is increasingly recognized as a form of organized crime. Trafficking networks may encompass anything from a few loosely associated freelance criminals to large organized criminal groups acting in concert.
Human trafficking is a lucrative criminal activity, touted as the third most profitable business for organized crime, after drugs and the arms trade, at an estimated $32 billion per year. In fact, narcotics trafficking and human trafficking are often intertwined, using the same actors and routes into a country. Migrant trafficking is one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises. Traffickers resort to other illicit activities to legitimize their proceeds, such as laundering the money obtained not only from trafficking but also from forced labour, sex industries, and the drug trade. To protect their investment, traffickers use terroristic threats as a means of control over their victims and demonstrate power through the threat of deportation, the seizing of travel documentation, or violence against the migrants or their family members remaining in the origin country.
Prevention and control of human trafficking
Trafficking is a transnational crime that requires international cooperation, and the United States has taken a lead in promoting intercontinental cooperation. The TVPA provides assistance to foreign governments in facilitating the drafting of antitrafficking laws, the strengthening of investigations, and the prosecuting of offenders. Countries of origin, transit, and destination of trafficking victims are encouraged to adopt minimal antitrafficking standards. These minimal standards consist of prohibiting severe forms of trafficking, prescribing sanctions proportionate to the act, and making a concerted effort to combat organized trafficking.
Foreign governments are to make a sustained effort to cooperate with the international community, assist in the prosecution of traffickers, and protect victims of trafficking. If governments fail to meet the minimum standards or fail to make strides to do so, the United States may cease financial assistance beyond humanitarian and trade-related aid. Furthermore, these countries will face opposition from the United States in obtaining support from financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. Department of State annually reports antitrafficking efforts in the Trafficking in Persons Report on countries considered to have a significant trafficking problem.
Ending "trafficking" is perhaps the most well-known, well-resourced, well-loved social cause of the 21st century that doesn't require its proponents' agreement on what it even is they wish to end. What is "trafficking"? How many people are "trafficked"? Look beyond the surface of the fight against trafficking, and you will find misleading statistics and decades of debate over laws and protocols. As for the issue itself, the lack of agreement on how to define "trafficking" hasn't slowed campaigners' fight. Rather, defining trafficking has become their fight.
Over the last 15 years, anti-trafficking campaigns have ascended to the most visible ranks of feminist, faith and human rights missions, enjoying support from organizations as ideologically unneighborly as women's rights NGO Equality Now and the conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation. The dominant contemporary understanding of trafficking took hold only around the turn of the century, driven in significant part by the advocacy of women's rights groups who sought to redefine trafficking specifically as the "sexual exploitation" of women and children. Indeed, this is the definition that groups like the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women succeeded in getting written into the first international laws (pdf) related to trafficking. When many people hear about "trafficking", this is the picture that comes to mind, and it is one that women's rights groups – and, increasingly, evangelical Christian groups like Shared Hope International, International Justice Mission and Love146 – use explicitly in their campaigning.
In fact, it is with the influence of these groups that the issue of trafficking itself began to migrate: from relative obscurity, to sessions at the United Nations, to highways in the United States, where drivers now find anti-trafficking billboards featuring shadowy photographs of young girls, images meant to "raise awareness". Using such images in service of ending "sexual exploitation" may seem contradictory, as the girls photographed are presented in what would otherwise seem to be a quasi-pornographic setting. A billboard I passed by last August on the interstate in Louisiana showed a girl who looked sweaty and wide-eyed – only, with the words "'NOT FOR SALE: END HUMAN TRAFFICKING" stamped in red over her face.
But what – and who – is being fought in what is pictured here?
Accurate statistics on trafficking are difficult to come by, which does not stop some anti-trafficking groups from using them anyway. For instance, Shared Hope International, which is aggressively pursuing anti-trafficking legislation in 41 US states, claims "at least 100,000 juveniles are victimized" each year in the United States, and possibly as many as 300,000 – a figure that has been cited (repeatedly) by CNN. In truth, the figure is an estimate from a University of Pennsylvania report from 2001 (pdf) of how many youth are "at-risk" of what its authors call "commercial sexual exploitation of a child", based on incidences of youth homelessness. But it was not a count of how many youth are victims of "trafficking'", or involved in the sex trade.
Prostitution is often conflated with "trafficking" in these statistics, in part because the definition of trafficking that has been pushed to prominence refers exclusively to "sexual exploitation". In fact, this conflation has found its way into the collection of data: according to a report from the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women:
"[W]hen statistics on trafficking are available, they usually refer to the number of migrant or domestic sex workers, rather than cases of trafficking."
This purposeful conflation of sex work and trafficking distinguishes the many feminist and faith-based anti-trafficking groups that focus on sex-trafficking from groups that work directly with people who are involved in forced labor of all kinds, whether or not it involves sex work. This schism over who gets to define trafficking is about to come to a head for California voters in the form of Proposition 35, which, if passed this November, will set higher criminal penalties and fines for those who commit what the authors of the bill define as sex-trafficking, as opposed to labor trafficking. It will also force those convicted of "trafficking" to register as sex offenders and submit to lifelong internet monitoring – whether or not sex or the internet were involved in their case.
There is no question that California is home to several industries where, according to the Freedom Network (whose member organizations employ a human rights-based approach to anti-trafficking work), forced labor is known to occur: agricultural work, restaurant work, construction work, hotel work, garment work and sex work. But what unites the workers in these industries is not "commercial sexual exploitation", but the erosion of labor protections and the toughening-up of immigration policies – which makes many more people vulnerable to coercion and abuse. Cindy Liou, staff attorney at the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, a Northern California-based project that has worked with hundreds of survivors of human trafficking, is advocating for Californians to vote no on this proposition.
"It redefines trafficking in a way that's incorrect, confusing, and terrible. It's highly problematic because it does this at the expense of all trafficking victims – it ignores labor trafficking victims."
In fact, so-called "sex-trafficking" constitutes only a small percentage of all forced labor, as estimated by the International Labor Organization. In their 2012 report, the ILO categorizes "forced sexual exploitation" as distinct from other kinds of forced labor, which, in some ways, is helpful as not all forced labor involves sex, and in other ways, adds more confusion to the issue (because what distinguishes "sex-trafficking" from sexual abuse is its occurrence within a workplace or work relationship). Still, of the nearly 21 million people the ILO estimates are forced laborers, 4.5 million are estimated to be what the ILO calls "victims of forced sexual exploitation" – that is, over three-quarters of the people around the globe estimated to be in forced labor are not involved in "forced sexual exploitation". By contrast, the ILO estimates that 2.2 million people worldwide are forced laborers in prisons or in the military – people whose stories we are quite unlikely to find on a highway billboard.
But, as in the furor over "sex-trafficking", it would be wrong to let the volume of public outcry stand in for how significant a problem it is – however that issue is defined or ill-defined. Similarly, the push for "real numbers" can also lead us further into the ideological morass that itself defines the trafficking issue. Jo Doezema, a researcher with the Paulo Longo Research Initiative and author of Sex Slaves and Discourse Masters: The Construction of Trafficking, cautions:
"[E]ven a recognition that disputes over the meaning of trafficking involve politics and ideology does not go far enough: it still leaves intact the idea that trafficking can be defined satisfactorily, if political will, clear thinking, and practicality prevail."
That is, there can be no assessment of the severity of "trafficking" if we define this issue by a simple and coherent accounting of "victims". What's lost in the relentless defining and counting are the complex factors behind what is now almost unquestioningly called "trafficking". Most of all, what is lost is any understanding or appreciation of the challenges faced by the millions of people working, struggling and surviving in abusive conditions, whose experiences will never fit on a billboard.
A former human trafficking victim issued a chilling warning about organized sex crime, cautioning every child is "vulnerable" to becoming a victim of the heinous offense.
The SOAP Project founder Theresa Flores was trafficked for two years as a young girl, while she was living with her parents in a middle class Detroit suburb.
She joined "America's Newsroom" Tuesday to share her story and how she has taken action to prevent other kids from falling victim to human traffickers.
"I was just a normal American kid and nobody would have suspected," Flores told Dana Perino. "All kids are vulnerable, and especially I was because we moved around a lot, and so I didn't have a really good support system. And I was targeted by a group of guys that weren't just high school students. They were involved in an organized crime ring in my nice suburban outside of Detroit in Birmingham."
"I was initially raped and drugged, and then they took pictures of this, and they blackmailed me for two years to try and earn them back while they earned a lot of money," she continued.
According to The Soap Project website, Flores was intimidated, stalked and afraid, while she was a sex slave for two years, but stayed silent in order to protect her family.
Despite stereotypes surrounding who is typically targeted, and where human trafficking usually occurs, Flores reiterated that the issue plaguing America goes far beyond the southern border – it's ravaging "every zip code."
"This is the second leading crime," Flores said. "I've been doing this for 15 years and still people have no idea that this is happening in every zip code around the country. This is really imperative that we shout this from the highest mountaintop, that this is not just organized crime."
"It's everything, it's parents, uncles, and aunts, and boyfriends, and it's a horrific way to live as a survivor, let me tell you," she continued.
Flores began The SOAP project, which stands for Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution, to save kids nationwide from experiencing the horrors that she did.
The platform's mission "is to end human trafficking by mobilizing communities, providing prevention education and advocacy, and facilitating restorative experiences for survivors," according to the website.
'The SOAP Project' labels soap with an emergency hotline number for victims of human trafficking
"We get together hundreds of thousands of volunteers over the course of a year to label bars of soap with the hotline number, and we give them out to every hotel and motel, usually around big sporting events," Flores said. "We've been to 11 Super Bowls. We have 21 chapters that continue our work all around the country."
Flores added the hotline number is available 24/7 in 114 different languages to help facilitate a rescue and get victims connected with critical resources.
Bailee Hill is an associate editor with Fox News Digital. Story ideas can be sent to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Money laundering accused swap Sydney mansions for remand cells
Nearly all of those accused of involvement in a $10 billion money laundering operation smashed by the Australian Federal Police this week have swapped their Sydney mansions for remand cells after appearing in court on Thursday.
In its largest-ever asset seizure, AFP officers took possession of at least $150 million worth of property and luxury assets and arrested nine suspects during 13 raids across Sydney on Wednesday, cutting off a shopping spree that included 360 hectares of land purchased for a new suburb near Sydney’s new international airport, worth $47 million.
Federal police arrest a man in Sydney as they dismantle a money laundering syndicate.
Nearly all of those accused of involvement in a $10 billion money laundering operation smashed by the Australian Federal Police this week have swapped their Sydney mansions for remand cells after appearing in court on Thursday.
In its largest-ever asset seizure, AFP officers took possession of at least $150 million worth of property and luxury assets and arrested nine suspects during 13 raids across Sydney on Wednesday, cutting off a shopping spree that included 360 hectares of land purchased for a new suburb near Sydney’s new international airport, worth $47 million.
On Thursday, AFP Assistant Commissioner Kirsty Schofield said restraining orders had been obtained on 20 Sydney properties, including two eastern suburbs homes with a combined value of $19 million. Luxury cars, handbags, jewellery and watches – some of which “cost more than what an individual would earn in a lifetime” – were also seized. She said the large land purchase near the airport “was for profit”.
The group is alleged to have acted “like an underground bank” with branches all over the world, Schofield said, “enabling it to illegally shift money for individuals and organised crime groups”.
Vaucluse resident Stephen Xin, the local business partner of fallen global casino industry tycoon, Alvin Chau, is accused of being the ringleader of the operation. He was arrested on Wednesday along with his wife Yi Ming Wang, Bellevue Hill man Zhaohua Ma and six others.
Xin and Ma, along with Epping man Jin Yang and Youming Chen from Mays Hill, near Parramatta, were charged with conspiring to deal with more than $120 million intended to become an instrument of crime.
Xin was also charged with conspiring to deal with $7 million in proceeds of general crime, along with his wife, accountant Raymond Luo, Chen Zhang from Crows Nest, and Ruizhen Wang from Burwood, who was issued a court attendance notice for later this month.
Of those taken into custody on Wednesday, only one, lawyer and migration agent Chang Hong Liu, applied for bail on Thursday. Liu was charged with aiding and abetting and perverting the course of justice for his role in the alleged operation.
Liu represented himself with assistance from a Legal Aid solicitor at Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday, appearing via video from Surry Hills police centre, wearing handcuffs and a blue suit.
He told the court he had a number of urgent migration matters to deal with, including clients who were in detention waiting to appeal cancelled visas, and “not aware I’m in trouble”.
Magistrate Brett Shields told Liu he might not be able to practice while on bail for the offences, which he described as “very serious”. Liu told the court he worked with “more than 50 other people” and would transfer his clients’ matters if necessary. He also said his hours of work were from 6am to 8pm and asked for extended hours for his daily bail reporting and a reduced curfew.
Although prosecutors did not oppose bail for Liu, who offered $100,000 cash as surety, Shields said he was inclined to ask for a “significantly greater” figure. Liu said he could come up with $300,000.
Liu’s role in the alleged scheme, and that of chartered accountant Luo, is expected to increase pressure on the federal government to introduce long-stalled Tranche 2 laws, which would force accountants, real estate agents and lawyers to face the same obligations as bankers and casinos to report suspected money laundering.
Schofield said investigators had been working on the case for a number of years and would not rule out further arrests in Australia or overseas as more evidence comes to light.
Money laundering groups in Australia should take note, she said: “You are on our radar”.
As for ordinary Australians who have money held offshore, she had this advice: “Only use registered and lawful remitters to move [your] money. Failing to do so may lead to very serious charges.”
All co-accused are due back in court on March 29.
Jewellery was among the luxury items federal police seized.
Trafficked: Australian colleges allegedly helped women enter Australia to work in sex industry
Former deputy secretary of the Department of Immigration
KEY POINTS
The 14 colleges identified as “corrupt” helped more than 190 South Korean females enter Australia to work in the sex industry.
Several confidential probes by policing agencies have generated extensive information about the way Australia’s immigration system is being scammed by organised crime syndicates.
Serving law enforcement officers said the role of Australian-based overseas student education providers in helping crime syndicates had been a persistent problem for border security officials.
None of the Australian colleges identified as corrupt have faced criminal sanction and most remain open.
More than a dozen Australian education providers for overseas students have been identified as allegedly “corrupt” by state and federal investigators probing the movement of women from Asia to Australia to work in the sex industry, including at brothels linked to illegal sex rings.
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission was involved in the investigation that identified the suspect colleges. It was sparked by a probe into a nationwide criminal network linked to Melbourne brothel 39 Tope.
Brothel on 39 Tope Street in South Melbourne.CREDIT:PAUL ROVERE
The colleges identified as “corrupt” helped more than 190 South Korean females enter Australia to work in the sex industry, including at 39 Tope and other brothels across the country, according to analysis seen by this masthead.
Some of them were recruited overseas by an illegal sex syndicate led by Australian crime figure Mae Ja Kim as recently as December 2018, according to one inquiry.
The inquiry is one of several confidential probes by policing agencies that have never resulted in criminal charges, but have generated extensive information about the way Australia’s immigration system is being scammed by organised crime syndicates.
Several serving law enforcement officers, who confidentially briefed the Trafficked investigative series, said the role of Australian-based overseas student education providers in helping crime syndicates had been a persistent problem for border security officials. The providers help foreign nationals obtain student visas despite knowing they don’t intend to study and instead join what experts have called an “underclass” of exploited foreign workers.
Trafficked is a project led by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan’s Revealed documentary program that has exposed the wholesale exploitation of Australia’s border security and immigration system by criminal syndicates involved in human trafficking and other crimes.
None of the 14 Australian colleges identified as corrupt have faced criminal sanction and most remain open.
In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs said the overseas student education sector, along with the agents who recruit students and help arrange visas, are monitored by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency and the Australian Skills Quality Authority. Colleges and agents are required under the law to act with integrity.
Trafficked can also reveal how investigators have uncovered the systemic rorting of the English language testing system meant to protect the integrity of Australia’s immigration system.
One federal investigation targeting a Chinese organised crime syndicate run by a suspected prolific English language test rorter has uncovered how the network has helped hundreds of foreign nationals obtain Australian visas fraudulently over the past decade, many of which have subsequently been cancelled.
English language tests are used by the Australian government to assess if foreign nationals are eligible for a range of different visas.
The suspected boss of the “English test rort” crime syndicate is a Sydney man who has reaped multi-million dollar profits by facilitating suspect visas over multiple visa streams. They include skilled visas, student visas, business sponsorship visas and the “golden ticket” high-wealth investor visas that Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil this year acknowledged were at risk of abuse.
The syndicate advertises on Chinese language websites, boasting of having facilitated “many successful applications over the last few years” and promising “personalised migration packages for clients” seeking to gain permanent residency in Australia.
“The fastest time to obtain PR [permanent residency] is three months, which will save you much time and effort,” one online advertisement states.
The crime network boss has continued to operate despite the Department of Home Affairs stripping him of his migration agent’s licence in 2016 after implicating him in the rorting of English language tests.
Official sources said that after being denied his licence, the boss has continued to operate his visa scam business, working with a large network of migration fixers to obtain visas by fraudulent means.
Visa applicants are suspected to pay the fixers up to $200,000 to arrange for others to sit the English language tests they must submit as part of their visa applications, or, to create a false relationship or business sponsorship visa case. English testing centres overseas and in Australia have been corrupted by syndicates, according to official sources.
In a statement, the Department of Home Affairs said it had a “Deed of Agreement with each of the test providers, which outlines requirements such as candidate identity verification, reporting, and score verification processes”.
This week, Trafficked revealed how border security failures had enabled a sex-trafficking boss jailed in Britain to set up a suspected trafficking operation in Sydney; how federal government licensed migration agents suspected to be engaged in falsifying visa applications had retained their government licences; and how multiple Australian education providers were created to facilitate endemic visa rorting.
In response to the revelations, O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said an investigation had started after an urgent meeting on Monday of the heads of the Australian Border Force, Home Affairs and the Australian Federal Police.
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Nick McKenzie is an Age investigative journalist who has twice been named the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year. A winner of 14 Walkley Awards, he investigates politics, business, foreign affairs, human rights and criminal justice.Connect via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system.
Trafficked: An international investigation
A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system that allowed it to run a national illegal sex racket.
Karen was smuggled into Australia from South Korea for sex work, and was sent to a brothel where she was made to work up to 25 hours in a row. She narrowly escaped with her life.
A new taskforce will target criminals exploiting the migration system after revelations of widespread visa rorting, foreign worker exploitation and drug crime.
Binjun Xie, the alleged boss of a human trafficking ring, is now the focus of an investigation by Australian law enforcement agencies and facing deportation.
October 31, 2022 by Lisa Visentin and Lachlan Abbott
Failures of the Immigration and Home Affairs departments have allowed a crime boss to enter and operate in Australia after his release from jail in Britain.
While the Home Affairs Department says legislation exists to prevent worker exploitation, it is clear the measures are either not fit for purpose or are not being applied with the rigour required.
The company got a green light to move money into and out of Australia despite intelligence warnings and the prosecution of a related business in New Zealand.
November 2, 2022 by Nick McKenzie and Amelia Ballinger
A company run by Jack Ta, who boasted of “cosy” dinners with former Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton, has been used by more than a dozen drug offenders to remain in Australia on bogus asylum seeker claims.
November 6, 2022 by Nick McKenzie and Amelia Ballinger
Clare O’Neil says criminals are getting into Australia as corrupt agents, and education institutions help traffic sex slaves and drugs. But legitimate workers can’t find their way through a broken system.
November 6, 2022 by Nick McKenzie and Amelia Ballinger
Up to 100,000 workers have entered Australia using false claims, fuelling fears about illicit labour as the government launches a review of the migration system.
A global human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system
Aglobal human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system that allowed it to run a national illegal sex racket moving exploited foreign women around the country like “cattle”.
The crime boss at the operation’s centre set up his Australian operation immediately after his release from jail in Britain, where he was implicated in a similar illegal sex ring.
Binjun Xie, now a wealthy Sydney resident but previously identified by UK police as a Chinese triad boss nicknamed “The Hammer”, is one of several crime syndicate figures using migration system gaps.
His actions are laid bare in a major international journalism series, Trafficked, which uses leaked documents, undercover video and interviews with senior officials to expose weaknesses in Australia’s immigration system, the players who profit and the people who suffer as a result.
The investigation exposes the misuse of migration agents and fixers running so-called visa farms that engage in wholesale rorting of visas, including protection visas reserved for humanitarian reasons.
British investigator Kevin Forrest, who helped jail Xie in England a decade ago, said Asian women at his brothels had their passports removed and were directed to perform extreme and degrading services, including rape fantasies.
He said the women were subjected to modern slavery-like conditions: “You never come out. You never go into town. You never socialise. You’re never allowed to do anything else. You are there to perform the sex.”
The former detective said he was shocked that Australia had allowed Xie to enter the country and become involved in a criminal enterprise after his earlier ring was shut down in Europe.
“Absolutely flabbergasted. I’m flabbergasted that he’s able to get into Australia, bearing in mind that he was jailed here for five years with a condition that he was deported back to China upon his release,” Forrest said.
“It seems that he’s gone straight back to China, and then straight into Australia, and started again.”
Trafficked is a project led by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan’s Revealed documentary program which casts a light on visa rorting, human trafficking and foreign worker exploitation in Australia, including in a booming underground prostitution industry.
The investigation looks at visa fixers and migration agents with federal government licences who have enabled the entry into Australia of thousands of foreign workers.
Secret police intelligence, along with interviews with state and federal agencies and covert recordings, suggest many of these workers are exploited or involved in criminal activity.
Law enforcement sources not authorised to talk publicly said investigators warned Commonwealth agencies that federal government-licensed migration agents – including one who has submitted visa applications linked to Xie’s network, Sydney migration agent Songtao Lu – were enabling visa farms.
The visa farms are used by organised crime syndicate bosses to gain repeated entry into Australia for syndicate members and those they exploit as indentured labour.
“We think that this is an incredibly underreported crime.”
AFP Superintendent Jayne Crossling on sex trafficking
The investigation’s undercover footage corroborates these law enforcement warnings, capturing multiple agents offering to lodge false migration claims in return for money. While some agents appear to have falsified visa applications, there is no evidence to suggest they are personally aware of the syndicate’s crimes, including human trafficking and illegal prostitution, only that they are used by the syndicate to enable their operation.
With the exception of a few investigations, the police documents suggest the networks involved in the underground sex trade largely operate with impunity.
Senior Queensland Police organised crime investigator Detective Inspector Brad Phelps said vulnerable Asian women were being moved like “cattle” across Australia and being paid abysmally, if at all, by crime syndicates earning “hundreds of millions of dollars”.
Detective Inspector Brad Phelps at Queensland Police Headquarters.
“Sexual servitude, modern slavery are … synonymous with this type of activity,” he said.
“These are some of the most vulnerable people in our society: they’re in a foreign country, they don’t speak our language, they have no control over the work they’re conducting, they have no control over their clients, there’s no health and safety.
“They really are being treated as the lowest of the low and people are making massive profits from this exploitation.”
Phelps described as “reprehensible” any migration agents who knew of the situation and facilitated visas for Asian sex workers his detectives believed were being exploited in a series of east coast motels.
The AFP said it was likely the syndicate was still running.
Federal police Superintendent Jayne Crossling, who oversees the AFP’s human trafficking division, said the small number of prosecutions was frustrating and reflected the difficulty obtaining co-operation from fearful victims.
“We think that this is an incredibly underreported crime. I think we can do more to detect. We can do more to prevent. We can do more to educate those victims,” she said, while calling for “improvements” in Australian law.
A sex worker at a motel in Queensland.
Former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi, who worked closely with the Howard government, said the revelations, along with data suggesting visa rorting had been exploding since 2014, suggested the Department of Home Affairs and the former government had failed to take effective action.
He estimated there were at least 30,000 foreign workers remaining in Australia unlawfully, part of a “rapidly expanding permanent underclass, constantly exploited” in the sex industry, on farms and in other occupations.
"We don't ever want to become like the US or Europe from an immigration and border security perspective, but frankly we are now just like them in terms of the assault on our borders," he said.
Migration system under attack
The suspected criminal networks that link to Binjun Xie have appeared on state and federal law enforcement radar for years.
South Australian police uncovered one as part of “Operation Webpage”. It found call centres – including a room with seven Chinese nationals and 190 mobile phones – and websites set up to sell the services of Asian sex workers.
Leaked, confidential Operation Webpage briefings from 2018 state the “vast majority of the sex workers located by investigators cannot speak (or speak very little) English and routinely have no apparent ties to South Australia”.
Two images of organised crime boss Mae Ja Kim, who was jailed in 2015 in Victoria for a minimum of two and a half years in connection to dealing with the proceeds of crime.
Investigators also documented “links to Asian organised crime, child pornography and potential exploitation of young female Chinese students, human trafficking and money laundering across borders”.
“The likelihood of human trafficking occurring in SA and across Australia is high,” investigators concluded in another report, noting how the women appeared to be controlled by Chinese-organised crime gangs.
The Adelaide officers made multiple arrests for illegal prostitution offences and money laundering but were stymied by jurisdiction and resourcing issues.
They urged the introduction of “a multi-faceted task force” of state investigators and the Department of Home Affairs, Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.
State police sources said the recommendation was not acted upon and Operation Webpage was wound down by 2019.
Sex workers used as ‘pawns’
At this time, detectives in North Queensland, led by Detective Inspector Brad Phelps, were firing up.
Phelps, who also believes there is an urgent need for national action, led an investigation codenamed Ravens responding to complaints about illegal prostitution.
The police, though, were led to a “much more sinister and bigger picture”, he said.
“[We] stopped looking at the sex workers themselves as offenders, but as victims, as pawns.”
Phelps also revealed that some Asian women working in the sex industry “were being controlled and manipulated” and that this “certainly led into [federal government-licensed] migration agents and money laundering and the whole organised crime overarching umbrella”.
Ravens uncovered a hierarchal structure. Exploited sex workers occupied the lowest rung; they answered to “district controllers” co-ordinating with transportation and accommodation providers; at the top of the tree sat organised crime bosses.
“[The women] were moved like cattle across the country into different motels, where they were being exploited by these organised crime syndicates,” Phelps said.
He said these Asian women endured abysmal conditions, commonly working in debt bondage.
“They were here to work off a debt and their families could potentially be harmed if they caused any angst amongst the syndicate.”
Phelps said the national and international problem required multi-agency investigations into worker exploitation, dirty money trail and corrupting of the migration system.
“We need to target the wealth and the profit being stimulated and generated and to really curb this activity,” he said, warning the vast sums earned by Asian sex syndicates were laundered offshore only to “find [their] way into [Australian] real estate and the Australian economy”.
Motels used as illegal brothels
Phelps said some of the exploited women were working in a string of motels in regional centres, including Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Mount Isa, as well as in NSW.
“They’re put into a motel in a location. They stay in that room, they live in that room, they work out of that room until they are moved to another location.”
In 2020 and 2021, police working on Operation Ravens arrested and charged several motel owners and managers with running illegal brothels, but they received small fines and avoided criminal convictions.
Phelps said victims of exploitation were too fearful to co-operate with police and he suspected the syndicate was still operating motels as illegal brothels.
The joint media investigation used surveillance of suspect sites and undercover agents to inquire with motel managers and reception staff about the availability of sex workers.
The undercover operatives observed multiple Asian women living and working in cramped rooms, at motels previously linked by Phelps’ investigators to crime syndicates. On two occasions women had cooking facilities where they worked, suggesting they also live there.
In several cases, they disclosed they were working for “bosses” and that they would engage in unsafe sex.
Phone numbers and business records, along with the observations of the undercover operatives and court records, linked 17 motels in Queensland and NSW to the Asian crime sex syndicates targeted by Ravens.
They included motels in Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Brisbane.
Some of the sex workers and mid-level syndicate suspects operating out of these motels are linked back to the Binjun Xie network.
The Mr Big of trafficking
Sydney-based Binjun Xie has built a lavish life in Australia on the back of the organised crime-controlled underground sex trade and the human misery it entails.
A key confidential source with deep knowledge of the underground sex industry and Xie’s business operations briefed this masthead about the Chinese-born crime boss’ financial and business records in Australia.
Binjun Xie.CREDIT:60 MINUTES
Analysis of Xie’s business associates and financial records, along with court records and briefings from state and international police, suggests he sits at the apex of a national criminal syndicate moving Asian women across the country.
The records and briefings reveal that Xie’s business empire includes a Canberra-based woman previously investigated by the federal police for illegal prostitution offences and who has moved Asian women from Australia’s east coast to West Australia.
Another of his business associates was identified by Queensland Police’s Operation Ravens as a mid-level Chinese recruiter of vulnerable sex workers and a money launderer.
This recruiter told Queensland detectives she was a victim of debt bondage and was paying off a $200,000 debt in China by working for the syndicate.
A casino high-roller who lives in a secure apartment tower in Burwood, Sydney, Xie was the subject of a major organised crime probe in Britain in 2012 and 2013.
Ex-detective Kevin Forrest investigated Xie for human trafficking, money laundering and illegal prostitution.
“This is 100 per cent exploitation. This is 10 out of 10 for exploitation. These girls are not willing.”
British detective Kevin Forrest, who has investigated sex trafficking rings
He said the Asian women under the Xie syndicate’s control in Britain “were effectively prisoners” who were paid minimal amounts, if at all, to provide sexual services and had their passports removed from them.
While not physically imposing, Forrest believed Xie maintained control over Asian sex workers via fear, a belief he said was strengthened by his triad nickname: The Hammer.
“This is 100 per cent exploitation. This is 10 out of 10 for exploitation. These girls are not willing,” he said.
Forrest said some of the Asian women in Xie’s illegal brothels were “being bought to perform rape, and rape was being specified in the text, and the messaging that I saw on the phones, ‘I want to rape you’. You know, ‘How much for a rape?’ And they were being charged. I think it was 50 or 100 pounds for that. Unprotected sex was always being asked for. And that was being granted by the controller of the phone ... so, they had no choice.
“Those girls have been abused every day behind those doors. Not just by the people who are paying for it, who they, I suppose see it as being a service, but they are being kept against their will. And being told that’s what they’ve got to do. They are victims of sexual assault. They’re victims of rape every day.”
“Rape was being specified .. (in) the messaging that I saw on the phones, ‘I want to rape you’. You know, ‘How much for a rape?’”
Kevin Forrest on some of the horrific treatment the women faced
Xie entered the UK on a student visa and was also running a migration crime racket.
Forrest charged him with money laundering and illegal brothel offences, and he was jailed for five years in 2013. After an early release from prison he was deported to China.
Xie arrived in Australia in late 2014, also on a student visa.
Migration agents used to rort system
Members of Xie’s crime network are also working with a federal government licensed migration agent in Sydney, Songtao Lu, who official sources confirmed has for 10 years been flagged by federal government agencies as being used by the syndicate to lodge false visa claims for exploited foreign workers, including sex workers.
Lu first came to the attention of South Australian detectives in 2018 after they discovered dozens of women being controlled by a crime syndicate had obtained visas with his assistance. There is no evidence that Lu was aware of the syndicate’s activities or the women’s circumstances, only that the syndicate used his services.
Migration agent Songtao Lu.
Lu was one of several federal government-licensed migration agents a South Australian police report warned were likely “facilitating provision of foreign nationals, particularly Chinese nationals, for sex industry work in SA”.
Three years after he was flagged, Lu remains licensed by the federal government to assist people obtain visas — and he is still being used for illegitimate visa applications.
In a covert recording, Lu is taped offering to lodge a false asylum protection visa application for $2500.
“For cases like yours, what you could do is to apply for a protection visa. And then you can get a bridging visa. A bridging visa can be used for about three years. Our fee is $2500,” he says on the recording.
The Home Affairs Department said it does not respond to questions about specific cases or individuals, but said there was a comprehensive suite of laws and programs in place to defend the integrity of the visa system and prevent worker exploitation.
A spokesperson also said there were “penalties of up to 25 years’ imprisonment and specific protections for victims giving evidence in court in relation to human trafficking”.
An undercover journalist was offered a pathway to an Australian visa over coffee.CREDIT:THE AGE
Federal government agencies have allowed migration agents to keep operating despite repeated warnings about their role in rorting the visa system that is misused by organised crime gangs involved in human trafficking and worker exploitation.
Secret briefings from police and border security officials over the past decade warn that some agents have corrupted Australia’s migration system at the same time as the Home Affairs Department has continued to issue them the required licences.
Undercover recordings taken as part of investigative series Trafficked, by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan, show agents operating with impunity as they advise on how to rort the visa system, including by encouraging the use of false documents and fake asylum claims.
One agent, linked to up to 500 visas in recent years, is recorded urging a young woman to move to Australia for sex work by lodging a false education visa application, while also describing a network of Australian education providers set up to exploit the nation’s student visa stream.
While some agents appear to have offered to lodge false visa applications, there is no evidence to suggest they are personally aware of the syndicate’s crimes, including human trafficking and illegal prostitution, only that those agents are used by the syndicate to enable their operation.
Police complained that migration agents play a key role in allowing that network to flourish at the same time as repeated warnings to policymakers have failed to close the loopholes.
In February 2019, federal parliament’s joint committee on migration heard evidence that licensed agents were poorly regulated and those without licences operate with near impunity while breaching the law.
An official source, not authorised to speak publicly, confirmed that in December 2020 a law enforcement briefing to senior departmental officials warned migration agents and other people-smuggling fixers were “exploiting gaps” in border security.
The briefing said agents were “almost certainly” rorting Australia’s migration programs, such as student, spouse and asylum seeker visa pathways including women suspected to be trafficked or exploited in the sex industry.
Trafficked: Women shunted ‘like cattle’ around Australia for sex work
Aglobal human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system that allowed it to run a national illegal sex racket moving exploited foreign women around the country like “cattle”.
The crime boss at the operation’s centre set up his Australian operation immediately after his release from jail in Britain, where he was implicated in a similar illegal sex ring.
Binjun Xie, now a wealthy Sydney resident but previously identified by UK police as a Chinese triad boss nicknamed “The Hammer”, is one of several crime syndicate figures using migration system gaps.
His actions are laid bare in a major international journalism series, Trafficked, which uses leaked documents, undercover video and interviews with senior officials to expose weaknesses in Australia’s immigration system, the players who profit and the people who suffer as a result.
The investigation exposes the misuse of migration agents and fixers running so-called visa farms that engage in wholesale rorting of visas, including protection visas reserved for humanitarian reasons.
British investigator Kevin Forrest, who helped jail Xie in England a decade ago, said Asian women at his brothels had their passports removed and were directed to perform extreme and degrading services, including rape fantasies.
He said the women were subjected to modern slavery-like conditions: “You never come out. You never go into town. You never socialise. You’re never allowed to do anything else. You are there to perform the sex.”
The former detective said he was shocked that Australia had allowed Xie to enter the country and become involved in a criminal enterprise after his earlier ring was shut down in Europe.
“Absolutely flabbergasted. I’m flabbergasted that he’s able to get into Australia, bearing in mind that he was jailed here for five years with a condition that he was deported back to China upon his release,” Forrest said.
“It seems that he’s gone straight back to China, and then straight into Australia, and started again.”
Trafficked is a project led by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan’s Revealed documentary program which casts a light on visa rorting, human trafficking and foreign worker exploitation in Australia, including in a booming underground prostitution industry
Aglobal human trafficking syndicate has exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system that allowed it to run a national illegal sex racket moving exploited foreign women around the country like “cattle”.
The crime boss at the operation’s centre set up his Australian operation immediately after his release from jail in Britain, where he was implicated in a similar illegal sex ring.
Binjun Xie, now a wealthy Sydney resident but previously identified by UK police as a Chinese triad boss nicknamed “The Hammer”, is one of several crime syndicate figures using migration system gaps.
His actions are laid bare in a major international journalism series, Trafficked, which uses leaked documents, undercover video and interviews with senior officials to expose weaknesses in Australia’s immigration system, the players who profit and the people who suffer as a result.
The investigation exposes the misuse of migration agents and fixers running so-called visa farms that engage in wholesale rorting of visas, including protection visas reserved for humanitarian reasons.
British investigator Kevin Forrest, who helped jail Xie in England a decade ago, said Asian women at his brothels had their passports removed and were directed to perform extreme and degrading services, including rape fantasies.
He said the women were subjected to modern slavery-like conditions: “You never come out. You never go into town. You never socialise. You’re never allowed to do anything else. You are there to perform the sex.”
The former detective said he was shocked that Australia had allowed Xie to enter the country and become involved in a criminal enterprise after his earlier ring was shut down in Europe.
“Absolutely flabbergasted. I’m flabbergasted that he’s able to get into Australia, bearing in mind that he was jailed here for five years with a condition that he was deported back to China upon his release,” Forrest said.
“It seems that he’s gone straight back to China, and then straight into Australia, and started again.”
Trafficked is a project led by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan’s Revealed documentary program which casts a light on visa rorting, human trafficking and foreign worker exploitation in Australia, including in a booming underground prostitution industry
Secret police intelligence, along with interviews with state and federal agencies and covert recordings, suggest many of these workers are exploited or involved in criminal activity.
Law enforcement sources not authorised to talk publicly said investigators warned Commonwealth agencies that federal government-licensed migration agents – including one who has submitted visa applications linked to Xie’s network, Sydney migration agent Songtao Lu – were enabling visa farms.
The visa farms are used by organised crime syndicate bosses to gain repeated entry into Australia for syndicate members and those they exploit as indentured labour.
“We think that this is an incredibly underreported crime.”
“We think that this is an incredibly underreported crime.”
AFP Superintendent Jayne Crossling on sex trafficking
The investigation’s undercover footage corroborates these law enforcement warnings, capturing multiple agents offering to lodge false migration claims in return for money. While some agents appear to have falsified visa applications, there is no evidence to suggest they are personally aware of the syndicate’s crimes, including human trafficking and illegal prostitution, only that they are used by the syndicate to enable their operation.
With the exception of a few investigations, the police documents suggest the networks involved in the underground sex trade largely operate with impunity.
Senior Queensland Police organised crime investigator Detective Inspector Brad Phelps said vulnerable Asian women were being moved like “cattle” across Australia and being paid abysmally, if at all, by crime syndicates earning “hundreds of millions of dollars”.
Detective Inspector Brad Phelps at Queensland Police Headquarters. CREDIT:GLENN HUNT
“Sexual servitude, modern slavery are … synonymous with this type of activity,” he said.
“These are some of the most vulnerable people in our society: they’re in a foreign country, they don’t speak our language, they have no control over the work they’re conducting, they have no control over their clients, there’s no health and safety.
“They really are being treated as the lowest of the low and people are making massive profits from this exploitation.”
Phelps described as “reprehensible” any migration agents who knew of the situation and facilitated visas for Asian sex workers his detectives believed were being exploited in a series of east coast motels.
The AFP said it was likely the syndicate was still running.
Federal police Superintendent Jayne Crossling, who oversees the AFP’s human trafficking division, said the small number of prosecutions was frustrating and reflected the difficulty obtaining co-operation from fearful victims.
“We think that this is an incredibly underreported crime. I think we can do more to detect. We can do more to prevent. We can do more to educate those victims,” she said, while calling for “improvements” in Australian law.
A sex worker at a motel in Queensland.
Former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi, who worked closely with the Howard government, said the revelations, along with data suggesting visa rorting had been exploding since 2014, suggested the Department of Home Affairs and the former government had failed to take effective action.
He estimated there were at least 30,000 foreign workers remaining in Australia unlawfully, part of a “rapidly expanding permanent underclass, constantly exploited” in the sex industry, on farms and in other occupations.
"We don't ever want to become like the US or Europe from an immigration and border security perspective, but frankly we are now just like them in terms of the assault on our borders," he said.
Migration system under attack
The suspected criminal networks that link to Binjun Xie have appeared on state and federal law enforcement radar for years.
South Australian police uncovered one as part of “Operation Webpage”. It found call centres – including a room with seven Chinese nationals and 190 mobile phones – and websites set up to sell the services of Asian sex workers.
Leaked, confidential Operation Webpage briefings from 2018 state the “vast majority of the sex workers located by investigators cannot speak (or speak very little) English and routinely have no apparent ties to South Australia”.
Two images of organised crime boss Mae Ja Kim, who was jailed in 2015 in Victoria for a minimum of two and a half years in connection to dealing with the proceeds of crime.
Investigators also documented “links to Asian organised crime, child pornography and potential exploitation of young female Chinese students, human trafficking and money laundering across borders”.
“The likelihood of human trafficking occurring in SA and across Australia is high,” investigators concluded in another report, noting how the women appeared to be controlled by Chinese-organised crime gangs.
The Adelaide officers made multiple arrests for illegal prostitution offences and money laundering but were stymied by jurisdiction and resourcing issues.
They urged the introduction of “a multi-faceted task force” of state investigators and the Department of Home Affairs, Australian Federal Police and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.
State police sources said the recommendation was not acted upon and Operation Webpage was wound down by 2019.
Sex workers used as ‘pawns’
At this time, detectives in North Queensland, led by Detective Inspector Brad Phelps, were firing up.
Phelps, who also believes there is an urgent need for national action, led an investigation codenamed Ravens responding to complaints about illegal prostitution.
The police, though, were led to a “much more sinister and bigger picture”, he said.
“[We] stopped looking at the sex workers themselves as offenders, but as victims, as pawns.”
Phelps also revealed that some Asian women working in the sex industry “were being controlled and manipulated” and that this “certainly led into [federal government-licensed] migration agents and money laundering and the whole organised crime overarching umbrella”.
Ravens uncovered a hierarchal structure. Exploited sex workers occupied the lowest rung; they answered to “district controllers” co-ordinating with transportation and accommodation providers; at the top of the tree sat organised crime bosses.
“[The women] were moved like cattle across the country into different motels, where they were being exploited by these organised crime syndicates,” Phelps said.
He said these Asian women endured abysmal conditions, commonly working in debt bondage.
“They were here to work off a debt and their families could potentially be harmed if they caused any angst amongst the syndicate.”
Phelps said the national and international problem required multi-agency investigations into worker exploitation, dirty money trail and corrupting of the migration system.
“We need to target the wealth and the profit being stimulated and generated and to really curb this activity,” he said, warning the vast sums earned by Asian sex syndicates were laundered offshore only to “find [their] way into [Australian] real estate and the Australian economy”.
Motels used as illegal brothels
Phelps said some of the exploited women were working in a string of motels in regional centres, including Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Mount Isa, as well as in NSW.
“They’re put into a motel in a location. They stay in that room, they live in that room, they work out of that room until they are moved to another location.”
In 2020 and 2021, police working on Operation Ravens arrested and charged several motel owners and managers with running illegal brothels, but they received small fines and avoided criminal convictions.
Phelps said victims of exploitation were too fearful to co-operate with police and he suspected the syndicate was still operating motels as illegal brothels.
The joint media investigation used surveillance of suspect sites and undercover agents to inquire with motel managers and reception staff about the availability of sex workers.
The undercover operatives observed multiple Asian women living and working in cramped rooms, at motels previously linked by Phelps’ investigators to crime syndicates. On two occasions women had cooking facilities where they worked, suggesting they also live there.
In several cases, they disclosed they were working for “bosses” and that they would engage in unsafe sex.
Phone numbers and business records, along with the observations of the undercover operatives and court records, linked 17 motels in Queensland and NSW to the Asian crime sex syndicates targeted by Ravens.
They included motels in Mackay, Townsville, Cairns and Brisbane.
Some of the sex workers and mid-level syndicate suspects operating out of these motels are linked back to the Binjun Xie network.
The Mr Big of trafficking
Sydney-based Binjun Xie has built a lavish life in Australia on the back of the organised crime-controlled underground sex trade and the human misery it entails.
A key confidential source with deep knowledge of the underground sex industry and Xie’s business operations briefed this masthead about the Chinese-born crime boss’ financial and business records in Australia.
Binjun Xie.CREDIT:60 MINUTES
Analysis of Xie’s business associates and financial records, along with court records and briefings from state and international police, suggests he sits at the apex of a national criminal syndicate moving Asian women across the country.
The records and briefings reveal that Xie’s business empire includes a Canberra-based woman previously investigated by the federal police for illegal prostitution offences and who has moved Asian women from Australia’s east coast to West Australia.
Another of his business associates was identified by Queensland Police’s Operation Ravens as a mid-level Chinese recruiter of vulnerable sex workers and a money launderer.
This recruiter told Queensland detectives she was a victim of debt bondage and was paying off a $200,000 debt in China by working for the syndicate.
A casino high-roller who lives in a secure apartment tower in Burwood, Sydney, Xie was the subject of a major organised crime probe in Britain in 2012 and 2013.
Ex-detective Kevin Forrest investigated Xie for human trafficking, money laundering and illegal prostitution.
“This is 100 per cent exploitation. This is 10 out of 10 for exploitation. These girls are not willing.”
British detective Kevin Forrest, who has investigated sex trafficking rings
He said the Asian women under the Xie syndicate’s control in Britain “were effectively prisoners” who were paid minimal amounts, if at all, to provide sexual services and had their passports removed from them.
While not physically imposing, Forrest believed Xie maintained control over Asian sex workers via fear, a belief he said was strengthened by his triad nickname: The Hammer.
“This is 100 per cent exploitation. This is 10 out of 10 for exploitation. These girls are not willing,” he said.
Forrest said some of the Asian women in Xie’s illegal brothels were “being bought to perform rape, and rape was being specified in the text, and the messaging that I saw on the phones, ‘I want to rape you’. You know, ‘How much for a rape?’ And they were being charged. I think it was 50 or 100 pounds for that. Unprotected sex was always being asked for. And that was being granted by the controller of the phone ... so, they had no choice.
“Those girls have been abused every day behind those doors. Not just by the people who are paying for it, who they, I suppose see it as being a service, but they are being kept against their will. And being told that’s what they’ve got to do. They are victims of sexual assault. They’re victims of rape every day.”
“Rape was being specified .. (in) the messaging that I saw on the phones, ‘I want to rape you’. You know, ‘How much for a rape?’”
Kevin Forrest on some of the horrific treatment the women faced
Xie entered the UK on a student visa and was also running a migration crime racket.
Forrest charged him with money laundering and illegal brothel offences, and he was jailed for five years in 2013. After an early release from prison he was deported to China.
Xie arrived in Australia in late 2014, also on a student visa.
Migration agents used to rort system
Members of Xie’s crime network are also working with a federal government licensed migration agent in Sydney, Songtao Lu, who official sources confirmed has for 10 years been flagged by federal government agencies as being used by the syndicate to lodge false visa claims for exploited foreign workers, including sex workers.
Lu first came to the attention of South Australian detectives in 2018 after they discovered dozens of women being controlled by a crime syndicate had obtained visas with his assistance. There is no evidence that Lu was aware of the syndicate’s activities or the women’s circumstances, only that the syndicate used his services.
Migration agent Songtao Lu.
Lu was one of several federal government-licensed migration agents a South Australian police report warned were likely “facilitating provision of foreign nationals, particularly Chinese nationals, for sex industry work in SA”.
Three years after he was flagged, Lu remains licensed by the federal government to assist people obtain visas — and he is still being used for illegitimate visa applications.
In a covert recording, Lu is taped offering to lodge a false asylum protection visa application for $2500.
“For cases like yours, what you could do is to apply for a protection visa. And then you can get a bridging visa. A bridging visa can be used for about three years. Our fee is $2500,” he says on the recording.
The Home Affairs Department said it does not respond to questions about specific cases or individuals, but said there was a comprehensive suite of laws and programs in place to defend the integrity of the visa system and prevent worker exploitation.
A spokesperson also said there were “penalties of up to 25 years’ imprisonment and specific protections for victims giving evidence in court in relation to human trafficking”.
When she arrived in Australia from South Korea, Karen knew two English words: “Hi” and “hello”.
She was handed a piece of paper she could give to customers of the Australian brothels she was assigned to work in.
It said: “Hi … I do everything” and listed a range of sexual services Karen would provide.
Karen was recruited by a human trafficking syndicate led by a woman police would later describe as a ruthless organised crime boss. Her name is Mae Ja Kim, but she went by “Mimi”.
The syndicate recruited Karen in South Korea, promising her generous pay and conditions if she moved to Australia to be a sex worker, and they paid for Karen’s airfare and Australian visa.
Arriving in Melbourne sometime prior to 2014 (Karen has requested the period she worked for the Kim syndicate to not be disclosed to preserve her anonymity and protect her from reprisal), her debt ballooned to include accommodation, hair extensions requested by the brothel owner and payments to a corrupt education provider to make it appear she was meeting the requirements of her Australian visa.
Karen’s passport was held by a syndicate member and she was told it would be returned upon repayment of her debt.
Without knowing it, Karen had entered into a debt bondage arrangement outlawed under Australia’s human trafficking legislation. “I would put on makeup and start at 8am and work until 1am,” she recalls. One shift lasted 25 hours. She was permitted a day off when she had her period. She worked three months straight with no days off.
Karen told her story to Trafficked, an investigative journalism project involving The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes, Stan and the Korea Centre for Investigative Journalism. Her experience is also documented in a South Korean government report, obtained by Trafficked.
Karen describes terrifying encounters with customers, especially those on drugs. “They would do different horrible things to me with sex toys. It was a really hard time.”
“I am making an effort to forget about it all. But I can’t forget. Because I am the victim.”
Karen, who was trafficked for sex by a gang of organised criminals
"The distress they’re in, the lack of control, the lack of knowledge, and just the exploitation that goes on in the sex industry, it’s pretty horrific.”
Inspector James Cheshire, who has spent years investigating sex trafficking
On her second day of work, she “experienced something like a scene from movies”.
She had been directed to a customer’s home, but when she entered she realised he was extremely drunk. She tried to flee, racing down a flight of stairs only to find a deadlocked door.
“Suddenly, the customer followed me from upstairs. It was so scary. The front door didn’t open, so I begged him for my life. I cried begging him to open the door.”
Detective Inspector James Cheshire from the Australian Federal Police. CREDIT:SIMON SCHLUTER
Karen didn’t know it but the Australian Federal Police were secretly monitoring key members of the syndicate, tapping the phone of Mae Ja Kim. The AFP probe was led by Superintendent Danielle Woodward and Inspector James Cheshire, and sparked by years of intelligence pointing to a human trafficking ring operating out of brothels licensed by the Victorian government. Woodward still burns with anger when recounting what she uncovered, as does Cheshire.
“When you speak to the individuals being trafficked, the distress they’re in, the lack of control, the lack of knowledge, and just the exploitation that goes on in the sex industry, it’s pretty horrific,” he said.
Cheshire says the AFP uncovered evidence suggesting dozens of women from South Korea had been imported to Australia over many years. While its operating hub was Melbourne, the syndicate had plans to expand up the east coast.
Cheshire and Woodward’s work led to Mae Ja Kim’s jailing for a minimum of two-and-a-half years in 2015 in connection to dealing with the proceeds of crime.
“They would do different horrible things to me with sex toys. It was a really hard time.”
Karen on her experiences with customers
The investigation also led to several of Kim’s accomplices being jailed and authorities in Queensland shutting down a syndicate brothel. It is one of the most successful counter-trafficking investigations in AFP history. And yet the pair couldn’t pursue trafficking offences, which carry higher jail terms, because of the difficulty meeting the evidentiary threshold required by the legislation. Many victims of the Kim syndicate were also too scared to go through the court process.
The difficulty faced by authorities in investigating and prosecuting modern slavery offences is why the head of AFP’s human trafficking division, Superintendent Jayne Crossling, is calling for “improvements” to the law.
Karen’s Australian nightmare ended after she met with Woodward and Cheshire’s team of investigators, who referred her to the Red Cross. She returned to Korea but still lives with the trauma of her time in Australia. “I am making an effort to forget about it all,” she says.
“But I can’t forget. Because I am the victim.”
Human trafficking: Alleged trafficking ring boss Binjun Xie under investigation
‘Repulsive abuses of human rights’: Alleged human trafficking kingpin under investigation
‘Repulsive abuses of human rights’: Alleged human trafficking kingpin under investigation
The alleged kingpin of a human trafficking ring is facing deportation after law enforcement agencies launched an investigation into how the criminal syndicate exploited flaws in Australian border security and the immigration system to run a national illegal sex racket.
Binjun Xie, the alleged Sydney-based crime boss at the operation’s centre, was exposed in the Trafficked investigation, a project led by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, 60 Minutes and Stan’s Revealed that also unveiled allegations of visa rorting, human trafficking and foreign worker exploitation in Australia, including in a booming underground prostitution industry.
Binjun Xie, the alleged kingpin of a human trafficking syndicate, is now the focus of an investigation by Australian law enforcement
In a joint statement, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles said an investigation into the revelations was under way following an urgent meeting of the heads of the Australian Border Force (ABF), Home Affairs, and the Australian Federal Police on Monday.
“Last night and this morning, 60 Minutes and the Nine papers outlined a series of allegations detailing grotesque abuse of Australia’s visa and migration system to facilitate sexual exploitation, human trafficking and other organised crime,” the statement said.
“The allegations detailed repulsive and egregious abuses of human rights that have no place in Australia or any other country.”
The ministers said the government’s immediate response would “focus on the individual elements of the conduct under investigation”.
“The Albanese government has no tolerance for the exploitation of migrants,” they said.
The ministers did not detail exactly who or what would be investigated, but this masthead has confirmed that Xie and migration agents used by the trafficking ring are the focus, with Xie facing deportation depending on the outcome of the investigation.
They also indicated further reviews into the visa system would follow, saying the reports demonstrated there were “broader, systemic failures on show” that required “urgent attention” and blamed the former Coalition government for neglecting the system.
In a press conference on Monday, ABF Acting Commander Tori Rosemond said the revelations were “confronting”, but declined to weigh in on Xie’s involvement and whether he would be deported.
In a press conference on Monday, ABF Acting Commander Tori Rosemond said the revelations were “confronting”, but declined to weigh in on Xie’s involvement and whether he would be deported.
“We don’t comment on individual cases. We also don’t comment on things that may be subject to ongoing investigation or operational activity so I can’t provide further details,” she said.
Rosemond said the ABF shared information and intelligence with Australia’s law enforcement partners both domestically and internationally but declined to comment on how Xie managed to enter Australia on a student visa after being deported from the UK.
Former Immigration Department deputy secretary Abul Rizvi told this masthead the revelations, along with data suggesting visa rorting had been exploding since 2014, indicated the Department of Home Affairs and the former government had failed to take effective action.
Coalition home affairs spokeswoman Karen Andrews, who held the portfolio under the Morrison government, said she had not been made aware of large-scale visa rorting by crime syndicates while minister, but said the revelations were “disturbing” and urged the government to investigate.
“I think that now it has been raised, now it’s out in the public forum, and there may well be information the current government has had more specifically than I had several months ago. But now’s the time that we need to look at what we can do to close those loopholes,” she told ABC radio.
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Crime against sex workers ‘almost doubles’ since law change According to the report, crime has increased 90% whereas violent crime specifically has increased 92%.
Campaigners warned of an increase in attacks on sex workers (Yui Mok/PA)
March 27 201
Crime against sex workers has almost doubled in the two years since new laws were implemented, campaigners have said. Ireland adopted the “Nordic Model” on March 27 2017, criminalising the purchase of sex, not the selling of sex, which the Government says is aimed at tackling trafficking and protecting vulnerable people in prostitution. Sex worker organisations have railed against the change since it was implemented, saying the new laws make workers more vulnerable.
Brothel-keeping laws have proved especially contentious as many workers (the majority of whom are women) would prefer to work in a shared property with a friend for safety reasons, however this practice would amount to a brothel under law, and see those involved arrested.
Statistics from UglyMugs.ie, an app where sex workers can confidentially report incidents of abuse and crime, state that since the law came into force, the number of incidents of abuse and crime being reported in the Republic of Ireland has greatly increased.
The number of sex workers using UglyMugs.ie has remained steady at between 6,000 and 7,000 per year.
The number of incidents reported from 2015-2017 was 4,278. Since the law change, from 2017-2019, incidents rose to 10,076.
According to the report, crime has increased 90% whereas violent crime specifically has increased 92%.
Kate McGrew, sex worker and director of Sex Workers Alliance Ireland (SWAI) says the new laws have created a buyer’s market, putting workers at risk.
“The purchasers of sex hold the power, this is in direct opposition to what we were told was the intention of the law,” she said.
“Sex workers are not decriminalised.
“The penalties of sex workers sharing premises together, also known as brothel keeping, has doubled since the introduction of the new Sexual Offences Bill in 2017. “Sex workers are now forced to work in isolation, which puts them at further risk of violence and exploitation. “Since the law has been introduced many more sex workers have been arrested than clients. “We want sex work decriminalised so that the power gets put back in the hands of the worker.” A Department of Justice spokesman: “The purpose of these offences is to target the demand for prostitution. “At the same time, the Act changed the law in relation to the sale of sexual services so that it is not an offence to engage in sexual activity for payment.
“There was a broad coalition of different groups in favour of the legislative change, many of which were involved in advocacy for women’s rights.
“Any person who has been the subject of a violent crime is encouraged to report it to An Garda Siochana. Any group with evidence of such crimes should make its information available to An Garda Siochana.”
A Gardai spokeswoman said: “An Garda Siochana do not comment on stats done by ‘apps’.”
Advocates are calling for full decriminalisation of sex work in the Northern Territory. (ABC News: Malcolm Sutton)
Sex workers in the NT are calling for the full decriminalisation of the industry. (Reuters)
Outreach worker Leanne Melling and Jules Kim from the Scarlet Alliance spoke in support of the reforms. (ABC News: Jacqueline Breen)
Independent MLA Gerry Wood wanted to be able to appear at the closed committee meeting (ABC News: Jacqueline Breen)
Backlash against sex work laws led by 'boycotting' Northern Territory independent politician By Jacqueline Breen https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-29/nt-politician-boycots-sex-work-hearings-opposes-decrim/11649142 29th October 2019
"It's really important to enable sex workers to come to the table and to speak." A politician opposed to the decriminalisation of sex work in the Northern Territory has claimed he has been "censored" by a parliamentary scrutiny committee which agreed to accept evidence from sex workers behind closed doors because of concerns about stigma and discrimination. The committee voted to close parts of the hearing to the public and all non-committee members at the request of sex workers wanting to give evidence. Independent Gerry Wood, who opposes the Government's proposed changes and is not on the committee, sat outside Parliament in protest on Tuesday instead of attending open sections of the hearing. Inside Parliament, the scrutiny committee heard impassioned arguments against the reforms from two former sex workers appearing alongside faith-based groups including the Australian Christian Lobby. But the proposed changes have the strong support of the Northern Territory's sex work community and local legal groups, who say decriminalising and regulating the industry will help make sex workers' work safer and create access to employment rights and protections. The closed sessions were requested for sex workers to share their experience of problems with the current regulatory framework, according to spokeswoman for the Northern Territory AIDS and Hepatitis Council's Sex Worker Outreach Program Leanne Melling. "We requested closed sessions for sex workers to have a space to provide evidence privately so that people didn't feel intimidated by stigma and discrimination and the committee responded respectfully," she said. "It's really important to enable sex workers to come to the table and to speak." 'Extreme barriers' for sex workers Labor said decriminalisation would allow the industry to operate in line with laws applying to all other individuals and businesses. Scarlett Alliance spokeswoman Jules Kim told the scrutiny committee that the removal of criminal sanctions made sex workers free to report mistreatment or abuse to workplace regulators or police. "To decriminalise sex work, to remove the criminality of sex workers' status and to be able to access different mechanisms — which, currently, there is an extreme barrier for sex workers to do that — will be a significant step forward," she said. She raised questions about the suitability certificates that will be required by operators of sex services businesses under the new laws and argued against restrictions on sex work advertising that go beyond general advertising standards. She also called on Labor to include a mechanism in the bill to wipe convictions that become void when the conduct they relate to is no longer a criminal offence. The Australian Christian Lobby's Northern Territory director Wendy Francis urged the committee to call for a longer inquiry into the bill and warned it would have "unintended consequences" for vulnerable groups and for town planning and zoning. "I think any legislative change in the area of prostitution should actually address the reasons that drive women into the industry, and it is largely women, and also the culture that normalises women's bodies being for sale," she said.
A former sex worker from New Zealand, Alison Peaufa, gave evidence of traumatic experience in the industry. She said sex workers advocating for decriminalisation did not represent the most vulnerable women in sex work. 'Complete contempt for the democratic process' Outside Parliament, Gerry Wood called on the Government to withdraw the bill and hold a full-scale inquiry into regulatory alternatives such as the Nordic model, which criminalises sex work customers. "Here we have an opportunity to look at alternatives that don't encourage prostitution, that actually reduce prostitution," he said. Opposition leader and scrutiny committee member Gary Higgins of the Country Liberals issued a media release saying Labor was showing "complete contempt for the democratic process" and denying Mr Wood the right to represent his electorate in parliament. "If a Member of Parliament is denied access to a Parliamentary process, the question must be asked — is this a dictatorship, or a democracy?" Mr Higgins said. Committee chair Tony Sievers said closed sessions were a standard option to receive sensitive testimony and said Mr Woods could have asked questions in the four hours of open hearings. Ms Melling said the Sex Worker Outreach Program appreciated the sensitivity shown by the committee in allowing sex workers to appear in closed hearings and anonymously. "This is due to stigma and discrimination and the current criminal status for the majority of sex workers in the NT. "For these reasons, sex workers must be able to testify confidentially and be able to present with confidence the actual picture of sex work in the NT, without fear of negative consequences," she said. Sex workers have long been campaigning for the full decriminalisation of sex work in the NT to enable access to rights, health and safety at work." The current legislation in the NT provides no protections for sex workers and advocates have raised concerns that this has put sex workers at risk.
PHOTO: Sex workers in the NT are calling for the full decriminalisation of the industry. (Reuters)
Victoria Sweet
Rising Waters, Rising Threats: The Human Trafficking of Indigenous Women in the Circumpolar Region of the United States and Canada Yearbook of Polar Law, Volume VI, 2014 Victoria Sweet
Rising Waters, Rising Threats: The Human Trafficking of Indigenous Women in theCircumpolar Region of the United States and Canada
Victoria Sweet
Abstract Among indigenous people around the world, human trafficking is taking a tremendous toll. Whiletrafficking is not an exclusively indigenous issue, disproportionately large numbers of indigenous people, particularly women, are modern trafficking victims. In Canada, several groups concerned about humantrafficking have conducted studies primarily focused on the sex trade because many sex workers areactually trafficking victims under both domestic and international legal standards. These studies foundthat First Nations women and youth represent between 70 and 90% of the visible sex trade in areas wherethe Aboriginal population is less than 10%. Very few comparable studies have been conducted in theUnited States, but studies in both Minnesota and Alaska found similar statistics among U.S. indigenouswomen. With the current interest in resource extraction, and other opportunities in the warming Arctic, people from outside regions are traveling north in growing numbers. This rise in outside interactionsincreases the risk that the indigenous women may be trafficked. Recent crime reports from areas that havehad an influx of outsiders such as Williston, North Dakota, U.S. and Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, both part of the new oil boom, demonstrate the potential risks that any group faces when people with nocommunity accountability enter an area. The combination of development in rural locations, thedemographic shift of outsiders moving to the north, and the lack of close monitoring in this circumpolararea is a potential recipe for disaster for indigenous women in the region. This paper suggests that in orderto protect indigenous women, countries and indigenous nations must acknowledge this risk and plan forways to mitigate risk factors.
Keywords Human Trafficking, Human Security, Extractive Industries, Arctic, Circumpolar Arctic, Climate Change,Indigenous Women, Violence against Women, Corporate Responsibility
Introduction A booming modern slave trade exists in the world today. An estimated 27 million peopleare trafficked – some for sex and some as laborers.2 Experts say that trafficking has surpassed the illegal arms trade, making it one of the top-grossing criminal industries in the world. 3 For indigenous peoples, human trafficking is just the new name of a historical problem. 4 They have experienced exploitation by outsiders in many different areas of the world for generations. 5 While trafficking is not an exclusively indigenous issue, according to collected data an alarmingly large number of indigenous people, particularly indigenous women, are modern day trafficking victims. Recently, the attention of the world has turned to the Arctic region, an area where asignificant number of indigenous peoples reside. The Arctic is melting, and with the melting hascome changes: warming temperatures; rising waters; ecosystem changes; and altered animal, bird, and sea mammal migrations, to name a few. 7 Because of these changes, investors now findthe Arctic an attractive location for new business ventures, tourism, and other economicactivities. However, with an increase in outside influences comes a greater risk that humantrafficking may become a problem in the Arctic region unless the risks are mitigated.
The scope of this article will be limited to the sex trafficking of indigenous women in thecircumpolar region of Alaska and Canada, with the recognition that other forms of humantrafficking exist, other populations are also at risk, and that other areas within the Arctic mayface similar concerns. Section I reviews the legal definition of human trafficking and whymisunderstanding the nature of the crime has exacerbated the problem. Section II addresses thedisproportionate impact that trafficking is having on indigenous communities. Section III 3 explores the connection between some forms of economic development and human traffickingand how current regional development plans create human security risks for local indigenouscommunities. Section IV proposes a multi-system approach to mitigate these risks andeffectively fight the crime of human trafficking. This approach makes recommendations anddiscusses already existing frameworks on the local/tribal, state/provincial/national, corporate, NGO, and international levels.
Part I The Legal Definition of Human Trafficking When people think about human trafficking, they picture the scenario portrayed in popular entertainment. 8 A young girl is kidnapped, drugged, and held captive in a foreigncountry to be sold for sex. While this type of trafficking occurs and is as terrifying as portrayed,it is not the only or even the most common form. Unfortunately, community members,lawmakers, and law enforcement officers all risk underestimating the impact of trafficking oncommunities if their understanding remains limited to this one scenario. Human traffickingcomes in many forms. It does not require kidnapping, movement, or border crossings. At itsheart, it is a crime of exploitation and abuse.
Since 2000 international law has defined human trafficking as: [t]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion , of abduction , of fraud , of deception, of the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, theexploitation or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forcedlabour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal oforgans. [emphasis added] 9 While the elements of transportation, transfer, and abduction are included in the definition, the majority of key elements refer to different forms of exploitation and coercion When countries began passing domestic trafficking legislation, national laws also shiftedthe focus from physical methods of trafficking to the underlying emotional techniques. The United States’ human trafficking legislation defines the essential elements of trafficking as theuse of “ fraud, force, or coercion” in order to commercially benefit off of the victim. 10 Similarly, the Canadian national legislation emphasizes exploitation over transportation.The Department of Justice clarifies that “[t]rafficking in persons is about exploitation and does 4 not necessarily involve movement.” 11 The law then emphasizes that qualifying behavior “could reasonably . . . cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person knownto them would be threatened if they failed to provide . . . the labour or service.” 12
The term human trafficking itself misleads people about the nature of the crime since trafficking implies movement. However, as a term of art, human trafficking will continue to be written into legislation, treaties, and other legal documents. Therefore, awareness must be raised about the true nature of the crime and the various ways it impacts communities. Until law enforcement and service providers recognize trafficking indicators within their own communities, the crime will proliferate.
Getting this information to communities has been impeded by the fact that the crime ishighly underreported. Many trafficking victims do not identify themselves as victims. Somesuffer from fear, shame, and distrust of law enforcement. 13 It is also not unusual for traffickingvictims to develop traumatic bonds with their traffickers because of the manipulative nature of this crime. 14 The fact that almost no human trafficking data currently exists further amplifies these problems. Visualizing the full scope of the problem is difficult when almost no statistics or numbers demonstrate the reality of the situation. As stated in one report out of Canada “[t]he criminal and marginalized nature of sexual exploitation makes it difficult to determine the total numbers of victims in Canada; there is no data collection/tracking method that provides a complete picture of commercial sexual exploitation or human trafficking.” 15 With so little formal data available, scholars must rely on less accepted sources of information such as press accounts and personal anecdotes. Unfortunately, until researchers conduct more formal studies, these sources provide the only available foundational data. Both the gravity of the crime as well as the need for reliable information should provide some inspiration to encourage more research on this topic. 16
Part II Human Trafficking Impact on Indigenous Communities The majority of sex trafficking data comes from studies about prostitution or commercial sexual exploitation. Although not every person involved in prostitution is legally a trafficking victim, according to the limited data gathered so far, many are. In one commercial sexual exploitation study, researchers discovered that over half of the women interviewed “met a conservative legal definition of human trafficking.” 17 The Canadian Standing Committee on the Status of Women has come to an even more forceful conclusion about the link between prostitution and human trafficking. According to the committee‟s formal statement “prostitution is closely linked to trafficking in persons . . . [because] prostitution is a form of violence and a violation of human rights . . . [and] consent is irrelevant because you can never consent to sexual exploitation.” 18 This statement is not without controversy. The Human Rights Caucus stated that “[o]bviously, by definition, no one consents to abduction or forced labour, but an adult woman is able to consent to engage in an illicit activity (such as prostitution). If no one is forcing her to engage in such activity, then trafficking does not exist.” 19 Keeping both perspectives in mind, researchers need to proceed cautiously when linking prostitution and human sex trafficking data. However, until more trafficking-specific data can be collected, the data derived from prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation studies provides the information necessary to start visualizing human trafficking activity and impact. While little general human trafficking data exists, even less has been gathered about how prostitution, and by extension human trafficking, affects indigenous communities. However, thed ata that has been collected is alarming. A review of the community impact data taken from four formal studies demonstrates both the disproportionate impact and the strong similarities between indigenous communities in both the United States and Canada. To provide a varied perspective,two of the studies chosen were conducted in different states in the United States and the other two were conducted in different Canadian provinces. Researchers conducted the first United States study in Minnesota. According to the data,roughly 25% of the women arrested for prostitution in Hennepin County identified as American Indian while American Indians comprise only 2.2% of the total population. 20 Alaska was the location for the second study. In Anchorage, 33% of the women arrested for prostitution were Alaska Native, but Alaska Natives make up only 7.9% of the population. 21 The Canadian studies showed similar results. In a study conducted in Winnipeg, 50% ofadult sex workers were defined as Aboriginal, while Aboriginal peoples comprise only 10% ofthe population. 22 Vancouver was the location for the second study. Fifty-two percent of thewomen involved in the commercial sex trade were identified as First Nations, while First Nations people comprise only 7% of the general population. 23 Data from only four studies does not provide a thorough picture of human trafficking’s impact on indigenous communities, but it does show a disturbing trend. In all four locations,indigenous women are disproportionately represented in the commercial sex trade. The data also demonstrates that this is not a localized problem. These studies were conducted in four geographically distinct locations in two different countries, proving that the commercial sexual exploitation of indigenous women crosses national borders and threatens the security of all indigenous communities. While the data from these studies provides a strong argument that indigenous womenmay be more strongly impacted by human trafficking than other women, it is not the onlyevidence that leads to this conclusion. Data from studies about vulnerability and risk factors provides additional support for this argument. Anywhere from 50 to 80% of identified victims are or were involved with child welfare services at some point in their lives. 24 Traffickers prey on children and youth with low self-esteem and minimal social support. 25 Some other risk factors specifically identified in a study done by the Alaska Trafficking Task Force include: poverty; limited education; lack of work opportunities; homeless/orphan/run away/thrown away youth; history of previous sexual abuse; physical, emotional, or mental health challenges; drug or alcohol addiction; PTSD; multiple arrests; history of truancy or being expelled. 26 Many indigenous communities struggle with the very problems that these studies have identified as vulnerability factors. In addition, indigenous women already face high safety risks. Violence againstindigenous women rates in both the United States and Canada are extremely high. According tothe United States Department of Justice “American Indians are 2.5 times more likely toexperience sexual assault crimes compared to all other races.” 27 A 2013 report on forcible raperates found that Alaska has the highest rates in the United States, with South Dakota coming in aclose second. Sixty-one percent of rape victims in Alaska are Alaska Natives, and 40% ofvictims in South Dakota are American Indian. 28 In Canada, Aboriginal women aged fifteen and older reported almost three times higher rates of violent victimization than non-Aboriginal women. 29 Statistics also demonstrate thatAboriginal women are significantly overrepresented as homicide victims. 30 Related to this arethe high rates of missing and murdered indigenous women throughout Canada, most of whichremain unsolved crimes. 31 According to the Sisters In Spirit initiative, “Aboriginal women are the most at risk group in Canada for issues related to violence.” 32 Even internationalorganizations recognize the risks of violence that indigenous girls face. The UN Inter-AgencyTask Force on Adolescent Girls identified indigenous girls as one of the groups at a particularlyhigh risk of human rights abuses, which includes trafficking. 33
Without more data, making a concrete case that human trafficking disproportionately impacts indigenous communities is difficult. However, the data from the studies of commercial sexual exploitation and prostitution, combined with known vulnerability factors and known levels of violence against indigenous women in both the United States and Canada, provide sufficient evidence to conclude that indigenous communities currently are and will continue to be disproportionately impacted by human trafficking. Therefore, when risk factors for trafficking appear in areas heavily populated by indigenous communities, precautions must be taken to protect the people in those areas before they become statistics.
Part III The Threat of Trafficking in the Circumpolar Arctic An estimated 4 million people inhabit the Arctic and about 13.1 million people live in thecircumpolar region. 34 While indigenous people are a minority in the region, they are a majorityin certain areas. For instance, around 85% of the inhabitants of Nunavut are indigenous. 35 Insome of the villages in northern Alaska, between 70% and 90% of the population is Alaska Native. 36 So, when activities occur that could impact human security issues in the Arctic,including the broader circumpolar region, the activities will impact indigenous communities. With the human trafficking industry expanding world wide, individual traffickers and organized crime networks are looking for new, profitable markets. Areas with major economic development projects, particularly projects that will require the importation of large numbers of outside workers, are prime trafficking locations. The circumpolar region of the United States and Canada meets all of these criteria. Criminals from outside of the region may try to expand into the area, but potential dangeralso comes from within communities. An increased demand for prostituted women and girls willcome with large numbers of outside workers. Traffickers fill this kind of demand through theexploitation of others. Overlooking these potential external and internal risks increases the possibility that regional development will lead to a serious human trafficking problem.
A. Economic Development in the Arctic A recently released Lloy’s/Chatham House publication predicts over $100 billion ininvestments in the Arctic will be made over the next decade. 37 In the circumpolar region of theUnited States and Canada, companies have already announced numerous development projects.To demonstrate the enormity of the economic development plans, below are a few examples of some of the proposed projects: The new port planned for Nome 38 Graphite One mine project in Nome 39 MMG Ltd.‟s plans to build two mines in Nunavut by 2018 Itzok Corridor Project that is expected to produce an annual 180,000 tonnes ofzinc and 50,000 tonnes of copper A huge open pit iron ore mine that will be constructed above the Arctic Circle in Nunavu The Mary River project on the Baffin Islands, expected to produce an annual 18million tonnes of iron ore 40 These projects alone will require an enormous workforce, and they are just a sampling of proposed projects. Radical changes in the nature of life are coming to this mostly rural circumpolar region. Some literature suggests that rural and remote communities are more vulnerable than urban communities to the negative impacts that come with large development projects. 41 Even without development projects, residing in rural locations negatively impacts women’s safety . In one report, a 19-year-old Alaska Native woman in a small village called police after being raped in her home. The police not only did not answer the phone, they did not even respond to the message she left. 42 The geographical isolation of many of these communities reduces economic opportunities for women, limits victim services, and increases community member vulnerabilities. 43 These factors all increase the risks for women living in the region. This new wave of development does not represent the first time that outsiders have gone to this region hoping to make a profit. Historically, large numbers of outsiders have flooded into northern Alaska and Canada looking for economic benefits, sometimes at the expense of local communities. Stories go back to the days of the Hudson Bay Company. In one story, a company officer openly kept a Chippeweyan woman as a “slave woman” and during that same period brothels were filled with Aboriginal women to “service European men.” 44 During the gold rush in both Alaska and Canada, large numbers of outsiders entered the area looking for economic opportunities. While documents do not refer to the activities that occurred as trafficking, at a minimum, prostitution and other forms of exploitation occurred. 45 Later, from 1974-1977, the Alaska pipeline again brought tens of thousands of workers to the area. Boom towns formed in Valdez, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. Economic development again brought with it a spike in crime. As workers made large sums of money, crime and illicit activity rates rose. 4
Not every story of exploitation or abuse has been documented. In some villages,community members tell anecdotal stories about outsiders who entered the area while fishing orwhaling, and left behind pregnant women and young babies. 47 Simply impregnating women doesnot equate to human trafficking activity, but the stories are part of a regional history in which indigenous women and girls are strongly impacted by the entry of outsiders into the region. Exacerbating these concerns in the United States’ circumpolar region are justice systems issues that differentiate Alaska from the rest of the country. The Indian Law and Order Commission recently released a report, which devoted an entire chapter to the justice system in Alaska, condemning it as the worst system for providing justice for Natives in the United States. 48 One tribal citizen testifying at a public hearing said to the commission, Every woman you‟ve met today has been raped. All of us. I know they won‟t believe that in the lower 48, and the State will deny it, but it‟s true. We all know each other and we live here. We know what’s happened. Please tell Congress and President Obama before it‟s too late. 49 In order to protect women, particularly indigenous women, from the dangers that come with economic development, communities need to remember the historical stories, officials need to understand the risk factors that come with extractive developments in rural areas, and preparations must be made for the next wave of outsiders entering the region.
B. Trafficking as a Human Security Risk in the Arctic Assessing security risks in the Arctic requires leaders to analyze more than just militaryor economic security. It requires an understanding of human security.
50 The definition of humansecurity has three parts, freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to take action on one’s own behalf. 51 To protect human security means to protect people from “critical and pervasive threats and situations. ” 52 Within the definition of human security are seven categories of threats: Economic Security (assured basic income) Food Security (physical and economic access to food) Health Security (relative freedom from disease and infection) Environmental Security (access to sanitary water supply, clean air and non-degraded land system) Personal Security (security from physical violence and threats) Community Security (security of cultural integrity) Political Security (protection of basic human rights and freedoms) 53
Human trafficking threatens at least three of these categories: personal, community, and political security. Therefore, Arctic security discussions are incomplete without a discussion of human trafficking. If the women and girls of the community are destroyed by this crime, the integrity of the whole culture is impacted, and basic human rights are not protected. According to the Human Rights Council, “[e]scalating charges of corporate -related human rights abuses are the canary in the coal mine, signaling that all is not well.” 54 Human rights violations have been alleged against numerous corporations, with large numbers of complaints being connected to extractive industry development in rural areas. 55 Mining projects cannot succeed without large numbers of workers. In rural areas, companies bring workers from outside the region to meet this need. When large numbers of outside workers with no connection to the community arrive in an area, violent crime rates rise. In discussing the link between extractive industry development and human trafficking, the US attorney for South Dakota said, 12 “[a]nytime you have large groups of men gathering, you‟re going to have the potential for sex trafficking problems.” 56 Another law enforcement officer serving in a developing area noted that the outside workers appear to have no respect for local laws. 57 Perhaps they are law-abiding citizens in the communities where they come from, but they have no allegiance to the communities where they only temporarily reside. 58 Williston, North Dakota provides a contemporary example of the fate that await sun prepared communities in the circumpolar Arctic region. The city sits on top of the Bakken oil formation.59 With the opening of the oil fields, hundreds of mostly male workers from outside ofthe state flocked to the town. The company houses workers in makeshift camps referred to as man camps. Within two years, the overall crime rates have increased 7.2 percent, which include large numbers of “forcible rape [s] . . . prostitution, and „other‟ sexual offenses .”60 Community members say that they know women and girls are being trafficked, but according to a law enforcement officer in the area, they do not keep trafficking statistics, so it is impossible to know the exact extent of this crime on the community. 61 A town in Canada has a similar story. In Fort McMurray, Alberta crime rates, specifically crimes against women, jumped in the same manner as the rates in North Dakota. 62 The mining boom brought an influx of crime to this town. In 2009 Fort McMurray had a crime rate of one crime for every five residents and was ranked “in the top five Canadian cities in terms of the crime severity index.” 63 Because business practices affect almost all human rights, government officials and community members must observe the impact these practices have within the community. The extractive industry is not the only industry that is prone to abuse.
64 For example, complaints about the tourism industry demonstrate that trafficking may occur in many settings. 65 However,the bulk of new development in this region is extractive in nature. Therefore, communities should focus immediate attention on extractive industry practices. Private sector investment drives valuable economic growth for communities, but withoutadherence to human rights standards, development projects can lead to violence and conflict. Themost vulnerable or marginalized members of communities are often excluded from the economic benefits, and instead bear the brunt of negative social impacts. 66
Part IV Mitigating the Risks The third aspect of human security listed in the previous section is freedom to take action on one‟s own behalf. 67 For local people to protect themselves in this new era of economic development, new systems and procedures must be formed. No single system can successfully combat trafficking, but a multi-system approach can assist a community in protecting itself. A police officer experienced in fighting trafficking said it this way, “The fight against human trafficking will not be won by cops or caped crusaders. Human trafficking will only be destroyed when we come together as a society and agree it is a problem, agree it needs to be stopped and agree to work together to stop it.” 68 When local/tribal, state, federal, and international leaders implement anti-trafficking programs, communities will finally have effective protections against this threat. Complete programs include a wide variety of preventative measures, legal protections, and victim support. 69
A. Local/Tribal Community Actions Local and tribal communities need to begin by raising awareness among community members about the legal definition of human trafficking, warning signs to watch for, and common ploys of traffickers. This process begins with educational programs in schools,community awareness meetings, and public service announcements. In addition, traffickers now 14 use the internet to access victims, particularly youth, necessitating special training to warn youth of these online dangers. 70 After raising awareness, communities need to focus on training workers who are mostlikely to encounter trafficking victims. Street outreach workers, social workers, law enforcementofficials, educators, and medical workers require appropriate training to recognize trafficking indicators. In a recent study done in Alaska, 70% of local and state law enforcement agents did not perceive signs of human trafficking in their communities, while at the same time, 70% said they had received no human trafficking training. 71 There seems to be a correlation between receiving trafficking training and recognizing its existence within communities. Related to training needs, these workers also need to create procedures to encourage greater coordination with one another. Collaboration increases the likelihood that trafficking cases will be identified. Trafficking also cannot be effectively tackled without more data collection. This may include everything from formal studies to better intake forms at both shelters and jails. Without more reliable data, full awareness will never be raised. Legislators will not pass stronger legislation or set aside funding for trafficking problems unless evidence shows that a problem exists.7 The biggest challenge for local communities and tribes to implement these recommendations is a lack of funding. 73 Educational programs, training for law enforcement and social workers, new forms, new processes, along with all of the services victims will need once they have been identified are all expensive. 74 In the same Alaskan survey mentioned above, 82%of law enforcement officers perceive that there are not enough resources to provide the necessary training. 75 This is why local communities cannot shoulder the burden of fighting human trafficking alone.
B. National/State/Provincial Government Actions i. Allocate Funding and Improve Access to Remedies States have a responsibility to protect citizens from both external and internal threats.United States Secretary of State John Kerry has even said “[g]overnments bear primary responsibility for responding to this crime [human trafficking].” 76 As referenced in Part I of this paper, national human trafficking laws define the crime and create a legal cause of action for countries to be able to prosecute traffickers. However, many experts claim that these laws do not sufficiently protect victims. 77 Lawmakers in both the United States and Canada need to review current legislation to determine if adjustments need to be made. Among suggestions for human trafficking legislation in the United States includes safe harbor laws for minors involved in sex trafficking. 78 These laws would protect minor sex trafficking victims while placing the burden on purchasers and pimps. Another legal model currently being promoted is known as the “Nordic Model.” 79 This model penalizes demand for prostitution while decriminalizing individual prostitutes. According to data from the Swedish Ministry of Justice, Sweden is no longer a desirable sex trafficking destination since it implemented this model. 80 Neither of these options are without controversy, however, and lawmakers will need to educate themselves on the potential positive and negative impacts of these and other potential legislative fixes before passing new human trafficking provisions.
In addition to legislative reforms, governments allocate funding for important initiatives.Because traffickers operate both inside and outside of state borders, significant resources must beallocated to stop these criminals. Since most local communities do not have the resources necessary to effectively fight trafficking, national, state, and provincial governments must find ways to assist. 81 Resources spent on prevention and collection ultimately save money. Disrupting an already entrenched trafficking culture and assisting with victim recovery costs much more than prevention.When governments allocate funding, priority areas should include: training for law enforcement officers, social workers, street outreach workers, educators, and medical workers’ community awareness and education programs; task forces; updates for procedures to make it easier to collaborate between agencies and identify trafficking; 82 studies to get the data on the actual impact of the problem; and victim services for those already harmed by this crime. While government funding is not limitless, prioritizing prevention saves money in the long term.Funding all of these initiatives will help mitigate trafficking damage.
ii. No Contracting with Companies with Known or Alleged Human RightsViolations Corporations will only take responsibility for human rights violations if market forces are used to encourage the change. 83 While corporate-related human rights violations are not as likely to occur in developed countries with strong legal systems as they would in some developing countries, the United States and Canada are not immune from human rights violations within their borders. Based on the statistics of crime rates surrounding existing extractive industry projects, development-based crimes can occur anywhere. Therefore, all governments, not just the governments of developing countries, have a responsibility to reduce the potential for crime by refusing to award contracts to companies that have not made sufficient efforts to shield communities from worker actions. When governments are evaluating which companies should be awarded development contracts, one criteria needs to be whether or not these companies have known human rights violations claims against them. Companies with a history of human rights violations, particularly if the companies shielded workers from liability for those violations, pose a safety risk for the current population. Awarding contracts to companies with these violations does not uphold a government’s responsibility to its citizens. Companies are created for the purpose of making a profit. If companies can no longer be profitable without working to prevent human rights abuses that result from workers and business practices, then they will work harder to insure that their companies do not contribute either directly or indirectly to these abuses. If it is appropriate to penalize companies for violating environmental impact standards, it is just as appropriate to penalize human rights violations. In both the United States and Canada, procedures have been put into place to require Social Impact Assessments (SIAs), which would open up ways for more companies to be penalized for human rights violations. 84 SIAs are used to assess potential social consequences related to development projects. 85 SIA implementation in the United States has been unevenly applied
because of “theabsence of legal mandates specifically requiring a standalone SIA.” 86 SIA implementation inCanada faces similar challenges. Under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), the only “legal requirement to examine impacts on health and socioeconomic conditions if these impacts are a consequence of an impact in the natural environment.” 87 Until both countries require more regular and thorough SIAs in addition to EISs, human security concerns will not be appropriately addressed. iii. Defining Corporate Human Rights Obligations as Fiduciary Duties Governments also increase the pressure on corporations to take responsibility for human rights violations by defining these violations as legally enforceable fiduciary duties.
88 When companies are required to disclose to shareholders what they are doing to prevent human rights abuses and also what actions they have taken to repair harm, then shareholders will have an enforceable breach of fiduciary duty case if the company is not preventing and/or repairing human rights abuses. This way the government uses the formal corporate structure of responsibility to hold companies accountable. 89 As one scholar stated When as a society we grant a company the license to operate, it is not simply alicense to create as much wealth for its shareholders as possible. It can alsoinvolve the requirement that the company actively promote the fundamental rights and well-being of individuals. . . . 90
iv. Altering the Legal Definition of Complicity for Criminal Liability
In order to hold a company legally liable for crimes committed by employees, the laws of most countries require proof that the company has been complicit. Complicity standards vary by country. In order to hold a company liable for the actions of workers, the government must prove the company knowingly “provid[ed] practical assistance or encouragement that ha[d] a substantial effect on the commission of a crime. 91 However, standards vary regarding the definition of „knowingly‟ . The reasonable knowledge standard, as developed in International Tribunals, requires that a company “knew or had reason to know” that its actions contributed tothe crime. 92 However, no consistency exists in the way courts interprets the mens rea requirement for this standard, leaving it up to legislators in individual countries to determine if legislation should be passed to clarify, and potentially lower, corporate complicity standards.States must also clarify how broad a corporation‟s sphere of influence expands. 93 If the sphere of influence is too narrow, more liberal definitions will still not allow community members to claim damages for crimes connected to development projects unless corporate leaders actually physical committed the crimes. Lowering the mens rea requirement and broadening the sphere of influence definition will make it easier for states to hold companies liable for actions that contribute to the spread of human trafficking. In addition, a company‟s refusal to take steps to prevent abuses could be listed in the lawas another form of complicity. Discussing this omission standard, the Human Rights Commission observed.. Mere presence in a country, paying taxes, or silence in the face of abuses is unlikely toamount to the practical assistance required for legal liability. However, acts of omissionin narrow contexts have led to legal liability of individuals when the omission legitimizedor encouraged the abuse. 94
v. Recognizing Tribal Governments as Legitimate Partners Because of the impact that trafficking has on indigenous communities, national, state, and provincial governments need to involve tribal governments as partners in the formation of anti-trafficking task forces or other initiatives. In addition, when creating anti-trafficking legislation,the legislation will only be effective when all concerns, including tribal concerns, are adequately addressed. Tribal communities will also not be able to effectively protect their citizens if states donot legally recognize their right to do so. While studying justice issues in Alaska, the Indian Lawand Order Commission formally recognized this fact. The Commission repeatedly recommendedstate acknowledgment of the validity of tribal law enforcement and tribal justice systems in order 19 for tribal communities to have adequate access to justice. 95 This includes respecting the role tribal leaders should play in this fight against human trafficking. Chief Isadore Day, a First Nation leader, reminded Canadians of this same truth. 96 He stated publicly that prosperity will spread through the region only with the inclusion and full participation of First Nations in all matters that affect them. While Chief Day‟s words primarily referred to economic development projects, the principle of inclusion applies to all issues that impact the well-being of indigenous communities. In addition, other scholars and leaders are recognizing that respect for tribal self-government, particularly in areas with increased development projects, creates more security for those communities. 97
C. Private Sector Actions While states have a duty to protect citizens against human rights abuses, corporations have a responsibility to respect human rights. 98 As policymakers debate corporate responsibility,and governments consider tightening requirements on companies, companies have the ability to take actions that will help them demonstrate their commitment to human rights protections. Companies need to implement a due diligence process that includes procedures to protect human rights. Companies already create plans to meet environmental standards, building codes,and other regulations. To include in this process a plan to protect communities from possible human rights violations is a good faith attempt to mitigate harm. Implementing these procedures will also protect companies from charges of complicity in crimes committed by workers or complicity based on the omission of duties, and should be a best practice when bringing large development projects into communities. 99 In addition to setting up procedures, companies can also find ways to give back to the community that ultimately protect human rights. Giving money to build schools or fund other local community initiatives is not an uncommon practice for companies, particularly those involved in bidding wars to get the most lucrative contracts. These donations could include special initiatives. For instance, if a company agrees to fund a new school, an educational awareness-raising program for local youth may be included in the funding plan. Or perhaps giving local law enforcement a donation to fund human trafficking awareness training or to 20 strengthen their numbers in order to deal with the increased load that the influx of outside workers will inevitably bring is in order. 100 Companies will not pay more than is required of them, so using a little forethought in negotiations can put both communities and companies in a more positive position. Creativity in nurturing corporate-community relationships will develop good will between the groups and leave all parties in a more positive position in relation to the contractual relationship.
D. NGO Actions Governments and local communities need to build strong relationships with NGOs, particularly those with missions to eradicate human trafficking and protect human rights. 101 NGOs act as watchdogs and often have the data, resources, and enthusiasm to pursue actions thatlocal communities and governments may not have. NGOs are able to mobilize workers as well as both national and international attention to troubling situations as they arise. In return, NGOs need to work with community leaders to understand the nature of problems as well as local concerns. This is particularly important when dealing with indigenous communities. Over the years, many indigenous communities have found themselves surrounded by people who genuinely mean to assist, but come with no cultural understanding. Indigenous peoples do not need more paternalistic individuals. Instead, they are looking for partners who respect local standards and traditions, and acknowledge the partnership nature of their role.Successful relationships between communities and NGOs allow the NGOs to meet their overarching goals while respecting the contribution that indigenous communities can make to their own well being. NGOs bring resources, publications, and new perspectives, and are invaluable partners to assist communities in protecting themselves from crimes like human trafficking.
E. International Actions Ultimately, human trafficking is a transnational problem. Traffickers operate across national boundaries, victims are transported across borders, and transnational actors such as multinational companies and individual buyers play key roles in the spread of this crime.Because of the transnational nature of human trafficking, the crime will never be eradicated without international action. Human trafficking complaints can be filed with international human rights tribunals. 102 However, in order for groups or individuals to effectively use international remedies, two major actions must be taken.
First, awareness of human trafficking as a human security issue must be raised internationally. Misinformation regarding the nature of the crime is still rampant, as is the lack of discussion regarding the risks associated with bringing large groups of outside workers into an area. Both historical and current situations demonstrate that risks do exist, and not addressing them will only lead to more problems that will need to be solved in the future. International awareness will then increase the pressure on governments and companies to mitigate these risks.In addition, if more attention is raised, more data will be collected and it will be easier to demonstrate the true impact that this crime is having on both indigenous and non-indigenous communities
To assist with these concerns, the United Nations created The United Nations GlobalInitiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) in 2007. 103 n According to the official site, “UN.GIFT works with all stakeholders – governments, business, academia, civil society and the media – to support each other‟s work, create new partnerships and develop effective tools to fight human trafficking.” 104 This Initiative promotes efforts to reduce victim vulnerability and the demand for exploitation while respecting fundamental human rights. 105
This Initiative creates a forum for interested parties to share best practices, contribute to the international body of knowledge, but it will only be truly effective if more parties join and contribute to the Initiative’s efforts.
Second, the international community needs to ensure that indigenous groups, particularly those that do not have a lot of resources or knowledge of international mechanisms, have access to those mechanisms. This is especially important for indigenous communities or nations that ar enot familiar with the procedures for filing grievances with international tribunals. If international organizations will put a stronger effort into getting information to these communities about international options, more groups will have the ability to start filing claims. Then, if they are not feeling supported by their national governments, they have another option for having complaints heard.
The International Bill of Human Rights, which consists of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is the international human rights rubric. 106 Because human trafficking has been deemed as not just a crime but a human rights violation by various organizations, the human rights principles espoused in these documents ought to apply to human trafficking activity. 107 However, while the criminal provisions created under the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons are obligatory, human rights protections remain discretionary. 108 Perhaps it is time for the international community to focus on the human rights aspects of these crimes.
Human trafficking is a major crime. The suggestions listed above demonstrate the reality that no single group can effectively fight trafficking alone. Risk factors exist on every level from individual community member actions to choices made by international bodies. However, if a multi-front strategy can be created, bringing together the efforts of local communities,government bodies, private companies, NGOs, and international bodies, a strong shield will be formed against crimes like human trafficking.
Conclusion Economic development in a region does not need to equal the exploitation of loca lcommunities, but based on both historical and current data, it often does unless proper attentionis paid to potential human rights violations. In the circumpolar Arctic region, the circumstances that exist need to be carefully monitored. Major economic projects are being planned in an areawhere large numbers of indigenous peoples reside, often in rural and remote villages. These communities will bear the brunt of the negative impacts associated with development projects,including the rising risk of crimes like human trafficking. The majority of projects planned are extractive ones, and they will require large groups of outside transient workers to be brought into the area. With the connection between human trafficking and these types of development projects as well as the disproportionate impact that trafficking is having on
indigenous communities, these communities have reason to be concerned. In addition, the lack of accurate information and data regarding trafficking has left the communities more vulnerable because local officials are not prepared to recognize and fight trafficking activity.
While huan trafficking has become a global epidemic, climate and accessibility issues have likely prevented it from taking as strong of a hold in the circumpolar region as it has in other areas. Therefore, allocating resources to trafficking prevention programs lessens the potential that trafficking as well as other crimes will take hold in this region. These actions also empower local people to fight crime more effectively. Data demonstrating the potential vulnerability of indigenous women and communities tohuman trafficking should be used to inspire change not minimize community strength. An indigenous woman from Australia shared these sentiments when speaking about human rightsviolations connected to mining in her territory: [W] e are a strong, proud and intellectual people. We are survivors and we will survive.Indigenous women must be the ones to make their own decisions. Nobody can help them. They don‟t want handouts or pity. They want what is rightfully theirs. They need JUSTICE and their RIGHTS. We can deal with our problems if there is an open, honest,respectful process of doing business. 109 All three aspects of human security, freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to take action on one‟s own behalf, need to be considered when dealing with changing Arctic conditions. The Arctic is warming, the waters are rising, and so are certain threats. With warming temperatures and melting ice comes greater accessibility to the region, leading to more outside influences and more potential human security threats. Indigenous communities in the circumpolar region of the United States and Canada are facing the next wave of economic development in the region. What is needed now is assistance to fight a human security threat that is too enormous to handle alone.Type your paragraph here.
Criminalisation of sex work normalises violence, review finds https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/11/criminalisation-of-sex-work-normalises-violence-review-finds Sex workers three times more likely to experience violence from client where trade is criminalised, data shows Badges promoting the decriminalisation of sex work from the Scarlet Alliance, the organisation for sex workers in Australia. Photograph: Michael Wickham/The Guardian
Sex workers are more likely to suffer poor health, violence and abuse in countries where their trade is criminalised, a major review has found. The review, by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found that sex workers suffering repressive policing – including arrest, imprisonment and extortion by officers – were three times more likely to experience sexual or physical violence from a client and were twice as likely to have HIV or another sexually transmitted infection as those who lived in countries where sex work was tolerated. Sex workers who fear that they, or their clients, may be picked up by the police are more likely to engage in risky encounters, unable to take the time to talk to a client before getting into a car or negotiate terms in advance, the researchers found. Their health and safety were at risk not only in countries where sex work was criminalised, but also in Canada, which has introduced the “Nordic model” pioneered by Sweden, under which the client can be arrested for a criminal offence, but not the sex worker. Published in the journal PLOS Medicine, the paper by Lucy Platt, associate professor in public health epidemiology, and Pippa Grenfell, assistant professor of public health sociology, is a review of data from 33 countries. They included comments from sex workers who took part in some of the studies. Canada passed a law in 2014 to make it illegal to pay for sex, but some sex workers say that has made their lives more risky. “They couldn’t have designed a law better to make it less safe,” said one sex worker. “It’s like you have to hide out, you can’t talk to a guy, and there’s no discussion about what you’re willing to do and for how much. The negotiation has to take place afterwards, which is always so much scarier. It’s designed to set it up to be dangerous. I don’t think it was the original intention, but that’s what it does.” Another woman working on the streets in Canada said she was no longer able to talk through the car window to ensure they felt safe. “Because of being so cold and being harassed, I got into a car where I normally wouldn’t have. The guy didn’t look at my face right away. And I just hopped in cause I was cold and tired of standing out there. And you know, he put something to my throat. And I had to do it for nothing.” France, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Norway, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden also criminalise the client. Guatemala, Mexico, Turkey and the US state of Nevada have regulated sex work, which allows better conditions for some, but worse for the many who operate outside the regulated arrangements. A man in the UK said the ideal situation was working from shared premises, where everybody had companionship and greater security. But, although buying and selling sexual services is legal, that can fall foul of the law. “Because of the legal situation, you have to be very, very careful. Because obviously it’s running a brothel, which has … really dangerous consequences these days,” he said. New Zealand is the only country to have decriminalised sex work, in 2003, although it is not legal for migrants. Sex workers said they were more able to refuse clients and insist on condom use, while relationships with police were better. “We always have police coming up and down the street every night,” said one woman. “We’d even have them coming over to make sure that we were all right and making sure … that we’ve got minders and that they were taking registration plates and the identity of the clients. So … it changed the whole street, it’s changed everything.” Grenfell said: “It is clear from our review that criminalisation of sex work normalises violence and reinforces gender, racial, economic and other inequalities. Decriminalisation of sex work is urgently needed, but other areas must also be addressed. “Wider political action is required to tackle the inequalities, stigma and exclusion that sex workers face, not only within criminal justice systems but also in health, domestic violence, housing, welfare, employment, education and immigration sectors.”
Rising Waters, Rising Threats: The Human Trafficking of Indigenous Women in the Circumpolar Region of the United States and Canada Yearbook of Polar Law, Volume VI, 2014 Victoria Sweet https://www.academia.edu/6119636/Rising_Waters_Rising_Threats_The_Human_Trafficking_of_Indigenous_Women_in_the_Circumpolar_Region_of_the_United_States_and_Canada?auto=download Rising Waters, Rising Threats: The Human Trafficking of Indigenous Women in theCircumpolar Region of the United States and Canada
Victoria Sweet
Abstract Among indigenous people around the world, human trafficking is taking a tremendous toll. Whiletrafficking is not an exclusively indigenous issue, disproportionately large numbers of indigenous people, particularly women, are modern trafficking victims. In Canada, several groups concerned about humantrafficking have conducted studies primarily focused on the sex trade because many sex workers areactually trafficking victims under both domestic and international legal standards. These studies foundthat First Nations women and youth represent between 70 and 90% of the visible sex trade in areas wherethe Aboriginal population is less than 10%. Very few comparable studies have been conducted in theUnited States, but studies in both Minnesota and Alaska found similar statistics among U.S. indigenouswomen. With the current interest in resource extraction, and other opportunities in the warming Arctic, people from outside regions are traveling north in growing numbers. This rise in outside interactionsincreases the risk that the indigenous women may be trafficked. Recent crime reports from areas that havehad an influx of outsiders such as Williston, North Dakota, U.S. and Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, both part of the new oil boom, demonstrate the potential risks that any group faces when people with nocommunity accountability enter an area. The combination of development in rural locations, thedemographic shift of outsiders moving to the north, and the lack of close monitoring in this circumpolararea is a potential recipe for disaster for indigenous women in the region. This paper suggests that in orderto protect indigenous women, countries and indigenous nations must acknowledge this risk and plan forways to mitigate risk factors.
Keywords Human Trafficking, Human Security, Extractive Industries, Arctic, Circumpolar Arctic, Climate Change,Indigenous Women, Violence against Women, Corporate Responsibility
Introduction A booming modern slave trade exists in the world today. An estimated 27 million peopleare trafficked – some for sex and some as laborers.2 Experts say that trafficking has surpassed the illegal arms trade, making it one of the top-grossing criminal industries in the world. 3 For indigenous peoples, human trafficking is just the new name of a historical problem. 4 They have experienced exploitation by outsiders in many different areas of the world for generations. 5 While trafficking is not an exclusively indigenous issue, according to collected data an alarmingly large number of indigenous people, particularly indigenous women, are modern day trafficking victims. Recently, the attention of the world has turned to the Arctic region, an area where asignificant number of indigenous peoples reside. The Arctic is melting, and with the melting hascome changes: warming temperatures; rising waters; ecosystem changes; and altered animal, bird, and sea mammal migrations, to name a few. 7 Because of these changes, investors now findthe Arctic an attractive location for new business ventures, tourism, and other economicactivities. However, with an increase in outside influences comes a greater risk that humantrafficking may become a problem in the Arctic region unless the risks are mitigated.
The scope of this article will be limited to the sex trafficking of indigenous women in thecircumpolar region of Alaska and Canada, with the recognition that other forms of humantrafficking exist, other populations are also at risk, and that other areas within the Arctic mayface similar concerns. Section I reviews the legal definition of human trafficking and whymisunderstanding the nature of the crime has exacerbated the problem. Section II addresses thedisproportionate impact that trafficking is having on indigenous communities. Section III 3 explores the connection between some forms of economic development and human traffickingand how current regional development plans create human security risks for local indigenouscommunities. Section IV proposes a multi-system approach to mitigate these risks andeffectively fight the crime of human trafficking. This approach makes recommendations anddiscusses already existing frameworks on the local/tribal, state/provincial/national, corporate, NGO, and international levels.
Part I The Legal Definition of Human Trafficking When people think about human trafficking, they picture the scenario portrayed in popular entertainment. 8 A young girl is kidnapped, drugged, and held captive in a foreigncountry to be sold for sex. While this type of trafficking occurs and is as terrifying as portrayed,it is not the only or even the most common form. Unfortunately, community members,lawmakers, and law enforcement officers all risk underestimating the impact of trafficking oncommunities if their understanding remains limited to this one scenario. Human traffickingcomes in many forms. It does not require kidnapping, movement, or border crossings. At itsheart, it is a crime of exploitation and abuse.
Since 2000 international law has defined human trafficking as: [t]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion , of abduction , of fraud , of deception, of the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, theexploitation or the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forcedlabour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal oforgans. [emphasis added] 9 While the elements of transportation, transfer, and abduction are included in the definition, the majority of key elements refer to different forms of exploitation and coercion When countries began passing domestic trafficking legislation, national laws also shiftedthe focus from physical methods of trafficking to the underlying emotional techniques. The United States’ human trafficking legislation defines the essential elements of trafficking as theuse of “ fraud, force, or coercion” in order to commercially benefit off of the victim. 10 Similarly, the Canadian national legislation emphasizes exploitation over transportation.The Department of Justice clarifies that “[t]rafficking in persons is about exploitation and does 4 not necessarily involve movement.” 11 The law then emphasizes that qualifying behavior “could reasonably . . . cause the other person to believe that their safety or the safety of a person knownto them would be threatened if they failed to provide . . . the labour or service.” 12
The term human trafficking itself misleads people about the nature of the crime since trafficking implies movement. However, as a term of art, human trafficking will continue to be written into legislation, treaties, and other legal documents. Therefore, awareness must be raised about the true nature of the crime and the various ways it impacts communities. Until law enforcement and service providers recognize trafficking indicators within their own communities, the crime will proliferate.
Getting this information to communities has been impeded by the fact that the crime ishighly underreported. Many trafficking victims do not identify themselves as victims. Somesuffer from fear, shame, and distrust of law enforcement. 13 It is also not unusual for traffickingvictims to develop traumatic bonds with their traffickers because of the manipulative nature of this crime. 14 The fact that almost no human trafficking data currently exists further amplifies these problems. Visualizing the full scope of the problem is difficult when almost no statistics or numbers demonstrate the reality of the situation. As stated in one report out of Canada “[t]he criminal and marginalized nature of sexual exploitation makes it difficult to determine the total numbers of victims in Canada; there is no data collection/tracking method that provides a complete picture of commercial sexual exploitation or human trafficking.” 15 With so little formal data available, scholars must rely on less accepted sources of information such as press accounts and personal anecdotes. Unfortunately, until researchers conduct more formal studies, these sources provide the only available foundational data. Both the gravity of the crime as well as the need for reliable information should provide some inspiration to encourage more research on this topic. 16
Part II Human Trafficking Impact on Indigenous Communities The majority of sex trafficking data comes from studies about prostitution or commercial sexual exploitation. Although not every person involved in prostitution is legally a trafficking victim, according to the limited data gathered so far, many are. In one commercial sexual exploitation study, researchers discovered that over half of the women interviewed “met a conservative legal definition of human trafficking.” 17 The Canadian Standing Committee on the Status of Women has come to an even more forceful conclusion about the link between prostitution and human trafficking. According to the committee‟s formal statement “prostitution is closely linked to trafficking in persons . . . [because] prostitution is a form of violence and a violation of human rights . . . [and] consent is irrelevant because you can never consent to sexual exploitation.” 18 This statement is not without controversy. The Human Rights Caucus stated that “[o]bviously, by definition, no one consents to abduction or forced labour, but an adult woman is able to consent to engage in an illicit activity (such as prostitution). If no one is forcing her to engage in such activity, then trafficking does not exist.” 19 Keeping both perspectives in mind, researchers need to proceed cautiously when linking prostitution and human sex trafficking data. However, until more trafficking-specific data can be collected, the data derived from prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation studies provides the information necessary to start visualizing human trafficking activity and impact. While little general human trafficking data exists, even less has been gathered about how prostitution, and by extension human trafficking, affects indigenous communities. However, thed ata that has been collected is alarming. A review of the community impact data taken from four formal studies demonstrates both the disproportionate impact and the strong similarities between indigenous communities in both the United States and Canada. To provide a varied perspective,two of the studies chosen were conducted in different states in the United States and the other two were conducted in different Canadian provinces. Researchers conducted the first United States study in Minnesota. According to the data,roughly 25% of the women arrested for prostitution in Hennepin County identified as American Indian while American Indians comprise only 2.2% of the total population. 20 Alaska was the location for the second study. In Anchorage, 33% of the women arrested for prostitution were Alaska Native, but Alaska Natives make up only 7.9% of the population. 21 The Canadian studies showed similar results. In a study conducted in Winnipeg, 50% ofadult sex workers were defined as Aboriginal, while Aboriginal peoples comprise only 10% ofthe population. 22 Vancouver was the location for the second study. Fifty-two percent of thewomen involved in the commercial sex trade were identified as First Nations, while First Nations people comprise only 7% of the general population. 23 Data from only four studies does not provide a thorough picture of human trafficking’s impact on indigenous communities, but it does show a disturbing trend. In all four locations,indigenous women are disproportionately represented in the commercial sex trade. The data also demonstrates that this is not a localized problem. These studies were conducted in four geographically distinct locations in two different countries, proving that the commercial sexual exploitation of indigenous women crosses national borders and threatens the security of all indigenous communities. While the data from these studies provides a strong argument that indigenous womenmay be more strongly impacted by human trafficking than other women, it is not the onlyevidence that leads to this conclusion. Data from studies about vulnerability and risk factors provides additional support for this argument. Anywhere from 50 to 80% of identified victims are or were involved with child welfare services at some point in their lives. 24 Traffickers prey on children and youth with low self-esteem and minimal social support. 25 Some other risk factors specifically identified in a study done by the Alaska Trafficking Task Force include: poverty; limited education; lack of work opportunities; homeless/orphan/run away/thrown away youth; history of previous sexual abuse; physical, emotional, or mental health challenges; drug or alcohol addiction; PTSD; multiple arrests; history of truancy or being expelled. 26 Many indigenous communities struggle with the very problems that these studies have identified as vulnerability factors. In addition, indigenous women already face high safety risks. Violence againstindigenous women rates in both the United States and Canada are extremely high. According tothe United States Department of Justice “American Indians are 2.5 times more likely toexperience sexual assault crimes compared to all other races.” 27 A 2013 report on forcible raperates found that Alaska has the highest rates in the United States, with South Dakota coming in aclose second. Sixty-one percent of rape victims in Alaska are Alaska Natives, and 40% ofvictims in South Dakota are American Indian. 28 In Canada, Aboriginal women aged fifteen and older reported almost three times higher rates of violent victimization than non-Aboriginal women. 29 Statistics also demonstrate thatAboriginal women are significantly overrepresented as homicide victims. 30 Related to this arethe high rates of missing and murdered indigenous women throughout Canada, most of whichremain unsolved crimes. 31 According to the Sisters In Spirit initiative, “Aboriginal women are the most at risk group in Canada for issues related to violence.” 32 Even internationalorganizations recognize the risks of violence that indigenous girls face. The UN Inter-AgencyTask Force on Adolescent Girls identified indigenous girls as one of the groups at a particularlyhigh risk of human rights abuses, which includes trafficking. 33
Without more data, making a concrete case that human trafficking disproportionately impacts indigenous communities is difficult. However, the data from the studies of commercial sexual exploitation and prostitution, combined with known vulnerability factors and known levels of violence against indigenous women in both the United States and Canada, provide sufficient evidence to conclude that indigenous communities currently are and will continue to be disproportionately impacted by human trafficking. Therefore, when risk factors for trafficking appear in areas heavily populated by indigenous communities, precautions must be taken to protect the people in those areas before they become statistics.
Part III The Threat of Trafficking in the Circumpolar Arctic An estimated 4 million people inhabit the Arctic and about 13.1 million people live in thecircumpolar region. 34 While indigenous people are a minority in the region, they are a majorityin certain areas. For instance, around 85% of the inhabitants of Nunavut are indigenous. 35 Insome of the villages in northern Alaska, between 70% and 90% of the population is Alaska Native. 36 So, when activities occur that could impact human security issues in the Arctic,including the broader circumpolar region, the activities will impact indigenous communities. With the human trafficking industry expanding world wide, individual traffickers and organized crime networks are looking for new, profitable markets. Areas with major economic development projects, particularly projects that will require the importation of large numbers of outside workers, are prime trafficking locations. The circumpolar region of the United States and Canada meets all of these criteria. Criminals from outside of the region may try to expand into the area, but potential dangeralso comes from within communities. An increased demand for prostituted women and girls willcome with large numbers of outside workers. Traffickers fill this kind of demand through theexploitation of others. Overlooking these potential external and internal risks increases the possibility that regional development will lead to a serious human trafficking problem.
A. Economic Development in the Arctic A recently released Lloy’s/Chatham House publication predicts over $100 billion ininvestments in the Arctic will be made over the next decade. 37 In the circumpolar region of theUnited States and Canada, companies have already announced numerous development projects.To demonstrate the enormity of the economic development plans, below are a few examples of some of the proposed projects: The new port planned for Nome 38 Graphite One mine project in Nome 39 MMG Ltd.‟s plans to build two mines in Nunavut by 2018 Itzok Corridor Project that is expected to produce an annual 180,000 tonnes ofzinc and 50,000 tonnes of copper A huge open pit iron ore mine that will be constructed above the Arctic Circle in Nunavu The Mary River project on the Baffin Islands, expected to produce an annual 18million tonnes of iron ore 40 These projects alone will require an enormous workforce, and they are just a sampling of proposed projects. Radical changes in the nature of life are coming to this mostly rural circumpolar region. Some literature suggests that rural and remote communities are more vulnerable than urban communities to the negative impacts that come with large development projects. 41 Even without development projects, residing in rural locations negatively impacts women’s safety . In one report, a 19-year-old Alaska Native woman in a small village called police after being raped in her home. The police not only did not answer the phone, they did not even respond to the message she left. 42 The geographical isolation of many of these communities reduces economic opportunities for women, limits victim services, and increases community member vulnerabilities. 43 These factors all increase the risks for women living in the region. This new wave of development does not represent the first time that outsiders have gone to this region hoping to make a profit. Historically, large numbers of outsiders have flooded into northern Alaska and Canada looking for economic benefits, sometimes at the expense of local communities. Stories go back to the days of the Hudson Bay Company. In one story, a company officer openly kept a Chippeweyan woman as a “slave woman” and during that same period brothels were filled with Aboriginal women to “service European men.” 44 During the gold rush in both Alaska and Canada, large numbers of outsiders entered the area looking for economic opportunities. While documents do not refer to the activities that occurred as trafficking, at a minimum, prostitution and other forms of exploitation occurred. 45 Later, from 1974-1977, the Alaska pipeline again brought tens of thousands of workers to the area. Boom towns formed in Valdez, Fairbanks, and Anchorage. Economic development again brought with it a spike in crime. As workers made large sums of money, crime and illicit activity rates rose. 4
Not every story of exploitation or abuse has been documented. In some villages,community members tell anecdotal stories about outsiders who entered the area while fishing orwhaling, and left behind pregnant women and young babies. 47 Simply impregnating women doesnot equate to human trafficking activity, but the stories are part of a regional history in which indigenous women and girls are strongly impacted by the entry of outsiders into the region. Exacerbating these concerns in the United States’ circumpolar region are justice systems issues that differentiate Alaska from the rest of the country. The Indian Law and Order Commission recently released a report, which devoted an entire chapter to the justice system in Alaska, condemning it as the worst system for providing justice for Natives in the United States. 48 One tribal citizen testifying at a public hearing said to the commission, Every woman you‟ve met today has been raped. All of us. I know they won‟t believe that in the lower 48, and the State will deny it, but it‟s true. We all know each other and we live here. We know what’s happened. Please tell Congress and President Obama before it‟s too late. 49 In order to protect women, particularly indigenous women, from the dangers that come with economic development, communities need to remember the historical stories, officials need to understand the risk factors that come with extractive developments in rural areas, and preparations must be made for the next wave of outsiders entering the region.
B. Trafficking as a Human Security Risk in the Arctic Assessing security risks in the Arctic requires leaders to analyze more than just militaryor economic security. It requires an understanding of human security.
50 The definition of humansecurity has three parts, freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to take action on one’s own behalf. 51 To protect human security means to protect people from “critical and pervasive threats and situations. ” 52 Within the definition of human security are seven categories of threats: Economic Security (assured basic income) Food Security (physical and economic access to food) Health Security (relative freedom from disease and infection) Environmental Security (access to sanitary water supply, clean air and non-degraded land system) Personal Security (security from physical violence and threats) Community Security (security of cultural integrity) Political Security (protection of basic human rights and freedoms) 53
Human trafficking threatens at least three of these categories: personal, community, and political security. Therefore, Arctic security discussions are incomplete without a discussion of human trafficking. If the women and girls of the community are destroyed by this crime, the integrity of the whole culture is impacted, and basic human rights are not protected. According to the Human Rights Council, “[e]scalating charges of corporate -related human rights abuses are the canary in the coal mine, signaling that all is not well.” 54 Human rights violations have been alleged against numerous corporations, with large numbers of complaints being connected to extractive industry development in rural areas. 55 Mining projects cannot succeed without large numbers of workers. In rural areas, companies bring workers from outside the region to meet this need. When large numbers of outside workers with no connection to the community arrive in an area, violent crime rates rise. In discussing the link between extractive industry development and human trafficking, the US attorney for South Dakota said, 12 “[a]nytime you have large groups of men gathering, you‟re going to have the potential for sex trafficking problems.” 56 Another law enforcement officer serving in a developing area noted that the outside workers appear to have no respect for local laws. 57 Perhaps they are law-abiding citizens in the communities where they come from, but they have no allegiance to the communities where they only temporarily reside. 58 Williston, North Dakota provides a contemporary example of the fate that await sun prepared communities in the circumpolar Arctic region. The city sits on top of the Bakken oil formation.59 With the opening of the oil fields, hundreds of mostly male workers from outside ofthe state flocked to the town. The company houses workers in makeshift camps referred to as man camps. Within two years, the overall crime rates have increased 7.2 percent, which include large numbers of “forcible rape [s] . . . prostitution, and „other‟ sexual offenses .”60 Community members say that they know women and girls are being trafficked, but according to a law enforcement officer in the area, they do not keep trafficking statistics, so it is impossible to know the exact extent of this crime on the community. 61 A town in Canada has a similar story. In Fort McMurray, Alberta crime rates, specifically crimes against women, jumped in the same manner as the rates in North Dakota. 62 The mining boom brought an influx of crime to this town. In 2009 Fort McMurray had a crime rate of one crime for every five residents and was ranked “in the top five Canadian cities in terms of the crime severity index.” 63 Because business practices affect almost all human rights, government officials and community members must observe the impact these practices have within the community. The extractive industry is not the only industry that is prone to abuse.
64 For example, complaints about the tourism industry demonstrate that trafficking may occur in many settings. 65 However,the bulk of new development in this region is extractive in nature. Therefore, communities should focus immediate attention on extractive industry practices. Private sector investment drives valuable economic growth for communities, but withoutadherence to human rights standards, development projects can lead to violence and conflict. Themost vulnerable or marginalized members of communities are often excluded from the economic benefits, and instead bear the brunt of negative social impacts. 66
Part IV Mitigating the Risks The third aspect of human security listed in the previous section is freedom to take action on one‟s own behalf. 67 For local people to protect themselves in this new era of economic development, new systems and procedures must be formed. No single system can successfully combat trafficking, but a multi-system approach can assist a community in protecting itself. A police officer experienced in fighting trafficking said it this way, “The fight against human trafficking will not be won by cops or caped crusaders. Human trafficking will only be destroyed when we come together as a society and agree it is a problem, agree it needs to be stopped and agree to work together to stop it.” 68 When local/tribal, state, federal, and international leaders implement anti-trafficking programs, communities will finally have effective protections against this threat. Complete programs include a wide variety of preventative measures, legal protections, and victim support. 69
A. Local/Tribal Community Actions Local and tribal communities need to begin by raising awareness among community members about the legal definition of human trafficking, warning signs to watch for, and common ploys of traffickers. This process begins with educational programs in schools,community awareness meetings, and public service announcements. In addition, traffickers now 14 use the internet to access victims, particularly youth, necessitating special training to warn youth of these online dangers. 70 After raising awareness, communities need to focus on training workers who are mostlikely to encounter trafficking victims. Street outreach workers, social workers, law enforcementofficials, educators, and medical workers require appropriate training to recognize trafficking indicators. In a recent study done in Alaska, 70% of local and state law enforcement agents did not perceive signs of human trafficking in their communities, while at the same time, 70% said they had received no human trafficking training. 71 There seems to be a correlation between receiving trafficking training and recognizing its existence within communities. Related to training needs, these workers also need to create procedures to encourage greater coordination with one another. Collaboration increases the likelihood that trafficking cases will be identified. Trafficking also cannot be effectively tackled without more data collection. This may include everything from formal studies to better intake forms at both shelters and jails. Without more reliable data, full awareness will never be raised. Legislators will not pass stronger legislation or set aside funding for trafficking problems unless evidence shows that a problem exists.7 The biggest challenge for local communities and tribes to implement these recommendations is a lack of funding. 73 Educational programs, training for law enforcement and social workers, new forms, new processes, along with all of the services victims will need once they have been identified are all expensive. 74 In the same Alaskan survey mentioned above, 82%of law enforcement officers perceive that there are not enough resources to provide the necessary training. 75 This is why local communities cannot shoulder the burden of fighting human trafficking alone.
B. National/State/Provincial Government Actions i. Allocate Funding and Improve Access to Remedies States have a responsibility to protect citizens from both external and internal threats.United States Secretary of State John Kerry has even said “[g]overnments bear primary responsibility for responding to this crime [human trafficking].” 76 As referenced in Part I of this paper, national human trafficking laws define the crime and create a legal cause of action for countries to be able to prosecute traffickers. However, many experts claim that these laws do not sufficiently protect victims. 77 Lawmakers in both the United States and Canada need to review current legislation to determine if adjustments need to be made. Among suggestions for human trafficking legislation in the United States includes safe harbor laws for minors involved in sex trafficking. 78 These laws would protect minor sex trafficking victims while placing the burden on purchasers and pimps. Another legal model currently being promoted is known as the “Nordic Model.” 79 This model penalizes demand for prostitution while decriminalizing individual prostitutes. According to data from the Swedish Ministry of Justice, Sweden is no longer a desirable sex trafficking destination since it implemented this model. 80 Neither of these options are without controversy, however, and lawmakers will need to educate themselves on the potential positive and negative impacts of these and other potential legislative fixes before passing new human trafficking provisions.
In addition to legislative reforms, governments allocate funding for important initiatives.Because traffickers operate both inside and outside of state borders, significant resources must beallocated to stop these criminals. Since most local communities do not have the resources necessary to effectively fight trafficking, national, state, and provincial governments must find ways to assist. 81 Resources spent on prevention and collection ultimately save money. Disrupting an already entrenched trafficking culture and assisting with victim recovery costs much more than prevention.When governments allocate funding, priority areas should include: training for law enforcement officers, social workers, street outreach workers, educators, and medical workers’ community awareness and education programs; task forces; updates for procedures to make it easier to collaborate between agencies and identify trafficking; 82 studies to get the data on the actual impact of the problem; and victim services for those already harmed by this crime. While government funding is not limitless, prioritizing prevention saves money in the long term.Funding all of these initiatives will help mitigate trafficking damage.
ii. No Contracting with Companies with Known or Alleged Human RightsViolations Corporations will only take responsibility for human rights violations if market forces are used to encourage the change. 83 While corporate-related human rights violations are not as likely to occur in developed countries with strong legal systems as they would in some developing countries, the United States and Canada are not immune from human rights violations within their borders. Based on the statistics of crime rates surrounding existing extractive industry projects, development-based crimes can occur anywhere. Therefore, all governments, not just the governments of developing countries, have a responsibility to reduce the potential for crime by refusing to award contracts to companies that have not made sufficient efforts to shield communities from worker actions. When governments are evaluating which companies should be awarded development contracts, one criteria needs to be whether or not these companies have known human rights violations claims against them. Companies with a history of human rights violations, particularly if the companies shielded workers from liability for those violations, pose a safety risk for the current population. Awarding contracts to companies with these violations does not uphold a government’s responsibility to its citizens. Companies are created for the purpose of making a profit. If companies can no longer be profitable without working to prevent human rights abuses that result from workers and business practices, then they will work harder to insure that their companies do not contribute either directly or indirectly to these abuses. If it is appropriate to penalize companies for violating environmental impact standards, it is just as appropriate to penalize human rights violations. In both the United States and Canada, procedures have been put into place to require Social Impact Assessments (SIAs), which would open up ways for more companies to be penalized for human rights violations. 84 SIAs are used to assess potential social consequences related to development projects. 85 SIA implementation in the United States has been unevenly applied
because of “theabsence of legal mandates specifically requiring a standalone SIA.” 86 SIA implementation inCanada faces similar challenges. Under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act (CEAA), the only “legal requirement to examine impacts on health and socioeconomic conditions if these impacts are a consequence of an impact in the natural environment.” 87 Until both countries require more regular and thorough SIAs in addition to EISs, human security concerns will not be appropriately addressed. iii. Defining Corporate Human Rights Obligations as Fiduciary Duties Governments also increase the pressure on corporations to take responsibility for human rights violations by defining these violations as legally enforceable fiduciary duties.
88 When companies are required to disclose to shareholders what they are doing to prevent human rights abuses and also what actions they have taken to repair harm, then shareholders will have an enforceable breach of fiduciary duty case if the company is not preventing and/or repairing human rights abuses. This way the government uses the formal corporate structure of responsibility to hold companies accountable. 89 As one scholar stated When as a society we grant a company the license to operate, it is not simply alicense to create as much wealth for its shareholders as possible. It can alsoinvolve the requirement that the company actively promote the fundamental rights and well-being of individuals. . . . 90
iv. Altering the Legal Definition of Complicity for Criminal Liability
In order to hold a company legally liable for crimes committed by employees, the laws of most countries require proof that the company has been complicit. Complicity standards vary by country. In order to hold a company liable for the actions of workers, the government must prove the company knowingly “provid[ed] practical assistance or encouragement that ha[d] a substantial effect on the commission of a crime. 91 However, standards vary regarding the definition of „knowingly‟ . The reasonable knowledge standard, as developed in International Tribunals, requires that a company “knew or had reason to know” that its actions contributed tothe crime. 92 However, no consistency exists in the way courts interprets the mens rea requirement for this standard, leaving it up to legislators in individual countries to determine if legislation should be passed to clarify, and potentially lower, corporate complicity standards.States must also clarify how broad a corporation‟s sphere of influence expands. 93 If the sphere of influence is too narrow, more liberal definitions will still not allow community members to claim damages for crimes connected to development projects unless corporate leaders actually physical committed the crimes. Lowering the mens rea requirement and broadening the sphere of influence definition will make it easier for states to hold companies liable for actions that contribute to the spread of human trafficking. In addition, a company‟s refusal to take steps to prevent abuses could be listed in the lawas another form of complicity. Discussing this omission standard, the Human Rights Commission observed.. Mere presence in a country, paying taxes, or silence in the face of abuses is unlikely toamount to the practical assistance required for legal liability. However, acts of omissionin narrow contexts have led to legal liability of individuals when the omission legitimizedor encouraged the abuse. 94
v. Recognizing Tribal Governments as Legitimate Partners Because of the impact that trafficking has on indigenous communities, national, state, and provincial governments need to involve tribal governments as partners in the formation of anti-trafficking task forces or other initiatives. In addition, when creating anti-trafficking legislation,the legislation will only be effective when all concerns, including tribal concerns, are adequately addressed. Tribal communities will also not be able to effectively protect their citizens if states donot legally recognize their right to do so. While studying justice issues in Alaska, the Indian Lawand Order Commission formally recognized this fact. The Commission repeatedly recommendedstate acknowledgment of the validity of tribal law enforcement and tribal justice systems in order 19 for tribal communities to have adequate access to justice. 95 This includes respecting the role tribal leaders should play in this fight against human trafficking. Chief Isadore Day, a First Nation leader, reminded Canadians of this same truth. 96 He stated publicly that prosperity will spread through the region only with the inclusion and full participation of First Nations in all matters that affect them. While Chief Day‟s words primarily referred to economic development projects, the principle of inclusion applies to all issues that impact the well-being of indigenous communities. In addition, other scholars and leaders are recognizing that respect for tribal self-government, particularly in areas with increased development projects, creates more security for those communities. 97
C. Private Sector Actions While states have a duty to protect citizens against human rights abuses, corporations have a responsibility to respect human rights. 98 As policymakers debate corporate responsibility,and governments consider tightening requirements on companies, companies have the ability to take actions that will help them demonstrate their commitment to human rights protections. Companies need to implement a due diligence process that includes procedures to protect human rights. Companies already create plans to meet environmental standards, building codes,and other regulations. To include in this process a plan to protect communities from possible human rights violations is a good faith attempt to mitigate harm. Implementing these procedures will also protect companies from charges of complicity in crimes committed by workers or complicity based on the omission of duties, and should be a best practice when bringing large development projects into communities. 99 In addition to setting up procedures, companies can also find ways to give back to the community that ultimately protect human rights. Giving money to build schools or fund other local community initiatives is not an uncommon practice for companies, particularly those involved in bidding wars to get the most lucrative contracts. These donations could include special initiatives. For instance, if a company agrees to fund a new school, an educational awareness-raising program for local youth may be included in the funding plan. Or perhaps giving local law enforcement a donation to fund human trafficking awareness training or to 20 strengthen their numbers in order to deal with the increased load that the influx of outside workers will inevitably bring is in order. 100 Companies will not pay more than is required of them, so using a little forethought in negotiations can put both communities and companies in a more positive position. Creativity in nurturing corporate-community relationships will develop good will between the groups and leave all parties in a more positive position in relation to the contractual relationship.
D. NGO Actions Governments and local communities need to build strong relationships with NGOs, particularly those with missions to eradicate human trafficking and protect human rights. 101 NGOs act as watchdogs and often have the data, resources, and enthusiasm to pursue actions thatlocal communities and governments may not have. NGOs are able to mobilize workers as well as both national and international attention to troubling situations as they arise. In return, NGOs need to work with community leaders to understand the nature of problems as well as local concerns. This is particularly important when dealing with indigenous communities. Over the years, many indigenous communities have found themselves surrounded by people who genuinely mean to assist, but come with no cultural understanding. Indigenous peoples do not need more paternalistic individuals. Instead, they are looking for partners who respect local standards and traditions, and acknowledge the partnership nature of their role.Successful relationships between communities and NGOs allow the NGOs to meet their overarching goals while respecting the contribution that indigenous communities can make to their own well being. NGOs bring resources, publications, and new perspectives, and are invaluable partners to assist communities in protecting themselves from crimes like human trafficking.
E. International Actions Ultimately, human trafficking is a transnational problem. Traffickers operate across national boundaries, victims are transported across borders, and transnational actors such as multinational companies and individual buyers play key roles in the spread of this crime.Because of the transnational nature of human trafficking, the crime will never be eradicated without international action. Human trafficking complaints can be filed with international human rights tribunals. 102 However, in order for groups or individuals to effectively use international remedies, two major actions must be taken.
First, awareness of human trafficking as a human security issue must be raised internationally. Misinformation regarding the nature of the crime is still rampant, as is the lack of discussion regarding the risks associated with bringing large groups of outside workers into an area. Both historical and current situations demonstrate that risks do exist, and not addressing them will only lead to more problems that will need to be solved in the future. International awareness will then increase the pressure on governments and companies to mitigate these risks.In addition, if more attention is raised, more data will be collected and it will be easier to demonstrate the true impact that this crime is having on both indigenous and non-indigenous communities
To assist with these concerns, the United Nations created The United Nations GlobalInitiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) in 2007. 103 n According to the official site, “UN.GIFT works with all stakeholders – governments, business, academia, civil society and the media – to support each other‟s work, create new partnerships and develop effective tools to fight human trafficking.” 104 This Initiative promotes efforts to reduce victim vulnerability and the demand for exploitation while respecting fundamental human rights. 105
This Initiative creates a forum for interested parties to share best practices, contribute to the international body of knowledge, but it will only be truly effective if more parties join and contribute to the Initiative’s efforts.
Second, the international community needs to ensure that indigenous groups, particularly those that do not have a lot of resources or knowledge of international mechanisms, have access to those mechanisms. This is especially important for indigenous communities or nations that ar enot familiar with the procedures for filing grievances with international tribunals. If international organizations will put a stronger effort into getting information to these communities about international options, more groups will have the ability to start filing claims. Then, if they are not feeling supported by their national governments, they have another option for having complaints heard.
The International Bill of Human Rights, which consists of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, is the international human rights rubric. 106 Because human trafficking has been deemed as not just a crime but a human rights violation by various organizations, the human rights principles espoused in these documents ought to apply to human trafficking activity. 107 However, while the criminal provisions created under the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons are obligatory, human rights protections remain discretionary. 108 Perhaps it is time for the international community to focus on the human rights aspects of these crimes.
Human trafficking is a major crime. The suggestions listed above demonstrate the reality that no single group can effectively fight trafficking alone. Risk factors exist on every level from individual community member actions to choices made by international bodies. However, if a multi-front strategy can be created, bringing together the efforts of local communities,government bodies, private companies, NGOs, and international bodies, a strong shield will be formed against crimes like human trafficking.
Conclusion Economic development in a region does not need to equal the exploitation of loca lcommunities, but based on both historical and current data, it often does unless proper attentionis paid to potential human rights violations. In the circumpolar Arctic region, the circumstances that exist need to be carefully monitored. Major economic projects are being planned in an areawhere large numbers of indigenous peoples reside, often in rural and remote villages. These communities will bear the brunt of the negative impacts associated with development projects,including the rising risk of crimes like human trafficking. The majority of projects planned are extractive ones, and they will require large groups of outside transient workers to be brought into the area. With the connection between human trafficking and these types of development projects as well as the disproportionate impact that trafficking is having on
indigenous communities, these communities have reason to be concerned. In addition, the lack of accurate information and data regarding trafficking has left the communities more vulnerable because local officials are not prepared to recognize and fight trafficking activity.
While huan trafficking has become a global epidemic, climate and accessibility issues have likely prevented it from taking as strong of a hold in the circumpolar region as it has in other areas. Therefore, allocating resources to trafficking prevention programs lessens the potential that trafficking as well as other crimes will take hold in this region. These actions also empower local people to fight crime more effectively. Data demonstrating the potential vulnerability of indigenous women and communities tohuman trafficking should be used to inspire change not minimize community strength. An indigenous woman from Australia shared these sentiments when speaking about human rightsviolations connected to mining in her territory: [W] e are a strong, proud and intellectual people. We are survivors and we will survive.Indigenous women must be the ones to make their own decisions. Nobody can help them. They don‟t want handouts or pity. They want what is rightfully theirs. They need JUSTICE and their RIGHTS. We can deal with our problems if there is an open, honest,respectful process of doing business. 109 All three aspects of human security, freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to take action on one‟s own behalf, need to be considered when dealing with changing Arctic conditions. The Arctic is warming, the waters are rising, and so are certain threats. With warming temperatures and melting ice comes greater accessibility to the region, leading to more outside influences and more potential human security threats. Indigenous communities in the circumpolar region of the United States and Canada are facing the next wave of economic development in the region. What is needed now is assistance to fight a human security threat that is too enormous to handle alone.Type your paragraph here.
Criminalisation of sex work normalises violence, review finds https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/dec/11/criminalisation-of-sex-work-normalises-violence-review-finds Sex workers three times more likely to experience violence from client where trade is criminalised, data shows Badges promoting the decriminalisation of sex work from the Scarlet Alliance, the organisation for sex workers in Australia. Photograph: Michael Wickham/The Guardian
Sex workers are more likely to suffer poor health, violence and abuse in countries where their trade is criminalised, a major review has found. The review, by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found that sex workers suffering repressive policing – including arrest, imprisonment and extortion by officers – were three times more likely to experience sexual or physical violence from a client and were twice as likely to have HIV or another sexually transmitted infection as those who lived in countries where sex work was tolerated. Sex workers who fear that they, or their clients, may be picked up by the police are more likely to engage in risky encounters, unable to take the time to talk to a client before getting into a car or negotiate terms in advance, the researchers found. Their health and safety were at risk not only in countries where sex work was criminalised, but also in Canada, which has introduced the “Nordic model” pioneered by Sweden, under which the client can be arrested for a criminal offence, but not the sex worker. Published in the journal PLOS Medicine, the paper by Lucy Platt, associate professor in public health epidemiology, and Pippa Grenfell, assistant professor of public health sociology, is a review of data from 33 countries. They included comments from sex workers who took part in some of the studies. Canada passed a law in 2014 to make it illegal to pay for sex, but some sex workers say that has made their lives more risky. “They couldn’t have designed a law better to make it less safe,” said one sex worker. “It’s like you have to hide out, you can’t talk to a guy, and there’s no discussion about what you’re willing to do and for how much. The negotiation has to take place afterwards, which is always so much scarier. It’s designed to set it up to be dangerous. I don’t think it was the original intention, but that’s what it does.” Another woman working on the streets in Canada said she was no longer able to talk through the car window to ensure they felt safe. “Because of being so cold and being harassed, I got into a car where I normally wouldn’t have. The guy didn’t look at my face right away. And I just hopped in cause I was cold and tired of standing out there. And you know, he put something to my throat. And I had to do it for nothing.” France, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Norway, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden also criminalise the client. Guatemala, Mexico, Turkey and the US state of Nevada have regulated sex work, which allows better conditions for some, but worse for the many who operate outside the regulated arrangements. A man in the UK said the ideal situation was working from shared premises, where everybody had companionship and greater security. But, although buying and selling sexual services is legal, that can fall foul of the law. “Because of the legal situation, you have to be very, very careful. Because obviously it’s running a brothel, which has … really dangerous consequences these days,” he said. New Zealand is the only country to have decriminalised sex work, in 2003, although it is not legal for migrants. Sex workers said they were more able to refuse clients and insist on condom use, while relationships with police were better. “We always have police coming up and down the street every night,” said one woman. “We’d even have them coming over to make sure that we were all right and making sure … that we’ve got minders and that they were taking registration plates and the identity of the clients. So … it changed the whole street, it’s changed everything.” Grenfell said: “It is clear from our review that criminalisation of sex work normalises violence and reinforces gender, racial, economic and other inequalities. Decriminalisation of sex work is urgently needed, but other areas must also be addressed. “Wider political action is required to tackle the inequalities, stigma and exclusion that sex workers face, not only within criminal justice systems but also in health, domestic violence, housing, welfare, employment, education and immigration sectors.”
Sex workers are more likely to suffer poor health, violence and abuse in countries where their trade is criminalised, a major review has found. The review, by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, found that sex workers suffering repressive policing – including arrest, imprisonment and extortion by officers – were three times more likely to experience sexual or physical violence from a client and were twice as likely to have HIV or another sexually transmitted infection as those who lived in countries where sex work was tolerated. Sex workers who fear that they, or their clients, may be picked up by the police are more likely to engage in risky encounters, unable to take the time to talk to a client before getting into a car or negotiate terms in advance, the researchers found. Their health and safety were at risk not only in countries where sex work was criminalised, but also in Canada, which has introduced the “Nordic model” pioneered by Sweden, under which the client can be arrested for a criminal offence, but not the sex worker. Published in the journal PLOS Medicine, the paper by Lucy Platt, associate professor in public health epidemiology, and Pippa Grenfell, assistant professor of public health sociology, is a review of data from 33 countries. They included comments from sex workers who took part in some of the studies. Canada passed a law in 2014 to make it illegal to pay for sex, but some sex workers say that has made their lives more risky. “They couldn’t have designed a law better to make it less safe,” said one sex worker. “It’s like you have to hide out, you can’t talk to a guy, and there’s no discussion about what you’re willing to do and for how much. The negotiation has to take place afterwards, which is always so much scarier. It’s designed to set it up to be dangerous. I don’t think it was the original intention, but that’s what it does.” Another woman working on the streets in Canada said she was no longer able to talk through the car window to ensure they felt safe. “Because of being so cold and being harassed, I got into a car where I normally wouldn’t have. The guy didn’t look at my face right away. And I just hopped in cause I was cold and tired of standing out there. And you know, he put something to my throat. And I had to do it for nothing.” France, Iceland, Northern Ireland, Norway, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden also criminalise the client. Guatemala, Mexico, Turkey and the US state of Nevada have regulated sex work, which allows better conditions for some, but worse for the many who operate outside the regulated arrangements. A man in the UK said the ideal situation was working from shared premises, where everybody had companionship and greater security. But, although buying and selling sexual services is legal, that can fall foul of the law. “Because of the legal situation, you have to be very, very careful. Because obviously it’s running a brothel, which has … really dangerous consequences these days,” he said. New Zealand is the only country to have decriminalised sex work, in 2003, although it is not legal for migrants. Sex workers said they were more able to refuse clients and insist on condom use, while relationships with police were better. “We always have police coming up and down the street every night,” said one woman. “We’d even have them coming over to make sure that we were all right and making sure … that we’ve got minders and that they were taking registration plates and the identity of the clients. So … it changed the whole street, it’s changed everything.” Grenfell said: “It is clear from our review that criminalisation of sex work normalises violence and reinforces gender, racial, economic and other inequalities. Decriminalisation of sex work is urgently needed, but other areas must also be addressed. “Wider political action is required to tackle the inequalities, stigma and exclusion that sex workers face, not only within criminal justice systems but also in health, domestic violence, housing, welfare, employment, education and immigration sectors.”