Ethiopian immigrants returning from Saudi Arabia arrive at Addis Ababas Bole... Read More
Teklai Hagos says he watched in
horror as Saudi Arabian police beat Ethiopian migrants
protesting against the alleged kidnapping and rapes of Ethiopian
women by young Saudi men.
“When we said stop, then the police started hitting us,”
the 30-year-old former pipe-factory worker in the Saudi capital,
Riyadh, recalled in an interview in Addis Ababa.
Teklai is among more than 100,000 Ethiopians repatriated
from Saudi Arabia since the kingdom began deporting illegal
migrants in November. It’s a crackdown Teklai and New York-based
Human Rights Watch say involved beatings by Saudi police and
rape and murder by vigilantes. Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman
General Mansour al-Turki denied the claims.
The Arab world’s biggest economy has taken action against
illegal workers as it pushes to create more jobs for Saudi
citizens and stave off the unrest that has toppled leaders
across the Middle East since 2011.
At least 115,465 Ethiopians have been repatriated,
according to the International Organization for Migration, or
IOM. Hundreds of thousands of Asian migrants are also being
deported from the oil-producing nation, which was home to about
9 million foreign workers in a population of 29.9 million,
according to Saudi government statistics.
Ethiopia’s government said three nationals were killed in
clashes with police in Riyadh that started Nov. 9. Ejected
workers say rioting occurred after Ethiopians were angered by
the rape of Ethiopian women at apartments in the Manfouha
district.
Machete Attacks
Ethiopians said Saudi citizens armed with sticks, machetes
and firearms attacked foreigners in Manfouha on Nov. 9,
according to Human Rights Watch.
One 30-year-old witness saw the bodies of two Ethiopians
who’d been beaten to death and one who’d been shot, it said.
Another had a video that “appeared” to show a Saudi man raping
an Ethiopian woman, the advocacy group said Dec. 1 in an e-mailed statement.
Mohammed Shime was near the area’s Al Rajhi Bank after a
Saudi man was killed in clashes. The 22-year-old says he saw six
Ethiopians stabbed to death when they fought back against Saudi
youth -- shabaab in Arabic -- who arrived in cars.
“Four come to you and start cutting you and asking for
your phone,” he said in an interview in Addis Ababa on Nov. 26.
“Then other shabaab come with their knives shouting ‘Allahu
Akbar.’”
‘False’ Claims
The claims of abuse by police and vigilantes are “false”
and deportation camps are open to diplomats and human rights
monitors, al-Turki said in a reply to questions sent by text
message on Dec. 5. He accused illegal Ethiopian migrants of
instigating violence in Riyadh as well as in the Saudi cities of
Jeddah and Medina.
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom chastised Muslim
Saudi Arabia for its treatment of citizens from his country,
which he said gave refuge to followers of the Prophet Mohammed
fleeing persecution in the 7th century.
The “last 10 days have been the most tragic in my life,”
he said on Nov. 18. Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation, may face
difficulties resettling workers, many of whom went abroad
because of limited job opportunities at home.
While the economy registered Africa’s fastest growth over
the past five years, with average expansion rates of 10.3
percent, the maximum monthly earnings for a laborer are about
$80.
Journey Home
For two years, Mohammed worked on a building site earning
1,500 Saudi riyals ($400) a month.
Most of those returning to Addis Ababa are bussed from Bole
International Airport to a compound run by IOM. From there,
coaches take them home, in Mohammed’s case to Kemissie in
Ethiopia’s Amhara region, 227 kilometers (141 miles) north of
the capital.
His trip to the kingdom was very different. Along with tens
of thousands of others every year, Mohammed paid traffickers
20,000 Ethiopian birr ($1,050) to take him him to neighboring
Djibouti and then across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen.
Others work in the kingdom legally. In the 12 months
through July 7 last year, 160,000 Ethiopian women flew to Saudi,
the majority to work as maids, joining thousands already there.
Many are being deported because they changed jobs without
employer permission, making their new work illegal, Human Rights
Watch said.
Physical Abuse
Mental, physical and sexual abuse are frequent complaints
made by Ethiopian domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, according to
Human Rights Watch. Ethiopia temporarily stopped issuing permits
for unskilled work abroad in October, mainly because of
mistreatment.
“The returning migrants are arriving in desperate
condition,” the Geneva-based IOM said in an e-mailed statement
on Dec. 6. “They are traumatized, tired, anxious and some
seriously sick.”
Some returnees with psychological problems are given refuge
by the Addis Ababa-based charity Good Samaritan Association,
which rents a two-story villa on the eucalyptus-covered hills
above the capital.
One new resident, Zeina Mussa, 18, clasps a black headscarf
over her face and says that although she’d been working in Saudi
Arabia as a maid for about eight months, she doesn’t know which
city she was in.
Mohammed saved 20,000 riyals during his two years, money he
says will help him become a businessman. He’s advising other
Ethiopians from seeking riches abroad even as he plans to invest
his savings.
“In Saudi Arabia the money is good,” he said. “But it’s
useless if you’ve money and no life.”
To contact the reporter on this story:
William Davison in Addis Ababa at
wdavison3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Antony Sguazzin at
asguazzin@bloomberg.net
Edna Adan Ismail (R) and Rex
Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, take part in a panel discussion at the
Clinton Global Initiative in New York September 23, 2009. REUTERS/Chip
East
When Naima's husband came home after the
birth of their first child in a village in rural Somaliland, there was a
rank smell of urine in the house.
He asked his wife what it was.
"This happened to me after I gave birth to our son," she said. Her
body had been torn during her prolonged labour, leaving a fistula, a
hole between her vagina and bladder.
At least two million women in developing countries live with fistula,
a devastating childbirth injury which results in uncontrollable leakage
of urine and/or faeces.
The story of Naima (not her real name) is told by Edna Adan Ismail, a
midwife who founded a hospital, speaking to Thomson Reuters Foundation
in the Somaliland capital, Hargeisa.
Naima's husband instantly disowned her and told her to go back to her
family. "You are damaged goods," he said. "I cannot have you leaking
and dirtying my house."
He grabbed the baby out of her arms. Naima tried to snatch him back.
"He takes a knife and he goes: 'Let go of the baby.' And he puts the
knife through here," said Ismail, pointing to the middle of her chin.
The blade went up through Naima's tongue and hit the roof of her mouth.
SLASHED FROM EAR TO EAR
Undeterred, she lunged for her child again. This time, he slashed her from ear to ear along her chin and left with the baby.
Naima crawled out of the hut to her neighbours, who sutured her with a
needle and thread, and carried her to the nearest hospital in Burao.
Days later, the hospital in Burao telephoned Ismail, asking her to
send an ambulance to collect Naima - a six-hour journey - and bring her
to Ismail's hospital, the Edna Adan Hospital in Hargeisa.
Ismail, who could not spare her only ambulance, asked if they could
put her on a truck. "And she says: 'I cannot because the truck drivers
refuse to carry this woman because she smells."
"I said: 'Ok. Go into town. Get the most foul, smelly perfume that
you can get. Get a couple of big plastic bags. Put as many padded things
as you can on her. Punch holes on the sides of the bags and put them on
her as Pampers (nappies)," she said.
"Put her on a truck and tell the driver Edna will give you $30 if you will bring her auntie to her."
And so Naima made it to Ismail's hospital and had surgery to repair
her fistula. She worked in the hospital kitchen for several months while
she recovered her strength.
ATTEMPTED MURDER
Ismail offered to help Naima prosecute her husband.
"If you want to take that man to court, I will stand on my head to
put that man on trial because that is attempted murder," she told Naima.
"If it's the last thing I do, I am willing to support you and to bring
that man to justice."
Naima refused. "No, I can't do that to my child's father," she said.
Ismail doesn't know what became of Naima after she left the hospital.
She is just one of hundreds of women who Ismail has helped since 2002
when she started holding fistula camps, at which visiting surgeons carry
out operations.
Around the world, more than 50,000 new fistula cases occur each year,
the overwhelming majority in Africa. Only one in 50 of those women
receives treatment.
In Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991, the number of
new cases is dropping thanks to Ismail's work, both in treating fistula
and in training more midwives to help women deliver their babies safely.
She feels blessed to have been able to help so many women. Patients
usually start crying when they use the toilet normally for the first
time after the operation, she said.
"And that's when we start crying too because we are so happy that one human being has been given back life," she said.
GUANGZHOU, China — Slack-jawed and perspiring, Chen Weizhou gazed at a
pair of life-size female dolls clad, just barely, in lingerie and lace
stockings. Above these silicone vixens, an instructional video
graphically depicted just how realistic they felt once undressed.
The one-child rule is a factor in China’s gender imbalance.
A 46-year-old tour bus driver, Mr. Chen had come earlier this month to
the Guangzhou National Sex Culture Festival “for fun,” which was not how
he described intimacy with his wife, who did not attend. “When you’re
young sex is so mysterious, but once you’re married it gets really
bland,” he said, barely taking his eyes off the screen.
With an official theme of “healthy sex, happy families,” the 11th annual
exposition sought to remedy the plight of Chinese men like Mr. Chen —
and their wives, if they are married.
The overwhelming presence of men at the festival mirrored a demographic
imbalance in China, where decades of the one-child rule and a cultural
preference for sons combined with illegal sex-selective abortions have
distorted the country’s gender ratio to 118 newborn boys for every 100
girls in 2012, rather than the normal 103 boys. In Guangdong Province,
home to a migrant worker population of 30 million — China’s largest —
the scarcity of women leaves bachelors with limited options.
Filling an exhibition center here in the capital of Guangdong in
southern China, the festival was a three-day mating ritual between
capitalism and hedonism, all diligently observed by that most prudish of
chaperones: the Chinese government. Erotic possibilities abounded,
including a transgender fashion show, sliced deer antler marketed as an
aphrodisiac, naughty nurse costumes and some flesh-color objects
disconcertingly called “Captain Stabbing.”
Three decades after China began shedding its priggish Mao-era mores, sex
is now a big business here. Across the country, pink-lit “hair salons”
staffed by provocatively garbed women compete with massage parlors and
late-night paid companions who slip their business cards under hotel room
doors. Those looking to enhance their encounters can shop at countless
“adult health product” stores and on the Internet.
Most of the inventory is made in China. According to state news media,
more than 1,000 Chinese companies manufacture around 70 percent of the
world’s sex toys, generating $2 billion a year as of 2010.
The bounty of carnal titillation must contend with the firm hand of the
Communist Party, which bans pornography and punishes those guilty of
“group licentiousness” in the name of protecting traditional Chinese
values. But the party’s moral authority has frayed of late because of
the publicized antics of its friskier members. In June, a government
official was sentenced to 13 years in prison for corruption after a
video surfaced showing him in bed with an 18-year-old woman. His fall
came three months after photos depicting a coterie of six naked people,
including a party official and his wife, exploded on the Internet.
In an attempt to give the sex festival a veneer of respectability,
government-run medical organizations sponsored booths in a side room,
which were, unsurprisingly, desolate. The main draw was lust.
Thousands of visitors, nearly all middle-aged men wielding cameras,
poured through the aisles in search of any visible flesh. “Guys have
been taking my picture all day,” said a bikini-clad model, Liang Lin,
23, who was hugging her bare midriff defensively as a throng of men
jostled desperately to get a better shot.
Not far away, a male crowd waited for a diminutive Japanese pornography
star named Rei Mizuna to appear. When she finally emerged from a
dressing room to hand out racy autographed photos, her frenzied fans
surged forward with such zeal they shattered a glass display case.
Those unrequited desires have helped spawn a booming domestic sex toy
industry. “A stuffed man doesn’t know what it’s like to be hungry,”
explained a salesman at one booth filled with inflatable dolls. Just
then, an older gentleman approached and tried to bargain over an $8
figure with black tresses and a vacant stare.
Across the floor, the Chinese chain Buccone sold higher-end
companionship. These $6,400 rubber dolls warm up “just like a real
person,” said an employee, Nie Tai, 23, and could be customized. “Some
men come with photos of their late wives.”
Huang Yulong, who works for a lingerie company called Toylace, was
unfazed by the festival’s libidinous fervor. “Chinese men have a fetish
for tearing off a woman’s clothes, so they’re not looking for romance,”
said Ms. Huang, standing beside a mannequin wearing a fishnet body
stocking that seemed to have run out of thread around the inner thigh.
At least, not with their spouses, she added. “Customers say they’re
buying for their wives, but we know it’s for their mistresses.”
In a country where it is still taboo to discuss sex publicly, creative
packaging hinted at a multitude of personal tastes and private
anxieties. Among the condom brands were Freud, packed in pink boxes, and
Tiger Teeth, which lay beside a colorful assortment of prophylactics
wrapped to resemble lollipops.
Perhaps because the domestic sex toy industry started with a focus on
exports, many items boasted of a foreign mystique, like the hand-held
Great Rome 5 and King Kong.
English mistranslations were particularly problematic among male sexual
enhancement products, many of which suggested unintended consequences,
like Black Widow. One vendor failed to impress a potential customer when
he vowed that the Casanova pills worked best. “The effects last a
week,” he said.
To attract potential buyers, some companies got creative, hosting pole
dancing shows and other activities. Li Jianglin, 42, a shoe factory
manager, won a contest in which participants raced to inflate condoms,
huffing and puffing until the first one popped. “Go, go, go!” screamed
the female organizer.
Mr. Li won a cash prize worth 16 cents, strawberry-flavored condoms and a
pink, battery-operated device with “overwhelm by joy” emblazoned on the
box. He eyed the contraption, turning it this way and that. “The
condoms are useful, but I don’t know what this thing is,” he said.
“Really.”
Not all visitors appeared to be so clueless. Ignoring the festival
crowds, a 66-year-old retired real-estate consultant fondled an
anatomically correct gadget, which her husband promptly purchased for
$8. “When men get older, that part doesn’t function very well and I have
needs,” said the woman, who would identify herself only as Ms. Huang.
She marveled at how times had changed since they married in 1975. “Back
then, under Mao, you couldn’t talk about sex,” she said. Asked how they
learned, Ms. Huang smiled knowingly. “Instinct,” she said.
Shi Da contributed research.
A version of this article appears in print on November 27, 2013, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: With Glut of Lonely Men, China Has an Approved Outlet for Unrequited Lust.
Toronto's mayor has been dogged by drug allegations, has lost much of his power
New court docs say that he had interactions with targets of a probe into organized crime
One target said Ford had made an offer "in exchange for a video," according to police
A man claimed "Ford was smoking rocks," police say of an intercepted phone call
(CNN) -- Criminal suspects claimed embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford
tried to buy a damaging video -- months before a tape was publicized
showing him smoking crack -- according to court documents released
Wednesday.
The documents obtained
from Ontario Crown Counsel Arielle Elbaz are tied to a Canadian
investigation into organized crime called Project Traveller. Ford wasn't
the focus of this investigation, and he has not been charged with a
crime. But, after allegedly interacting with several players who were
involved in the probe, he ended up getting ensnared in it.
The mayor's camp did not immediately return a CNN request for comment Wednesday night on the latest allegations.
According to the
documents, police translating a March 27 phone conversation primarily
from the Somali language believed that the men were talking about
"receiving an offer from Rob Ford in exchange for a video."
The men discussed an
apparent offer of $5,000 and a car in exchange for the video, as well as
selling the tape to the Toronto Star newspaper and an unnamed website.
Wiretap documents: Gang blackmailed Ford
The court documents
state: "At the end of the discussion, (one of the men) said he does not
want to go to the media but would just see him (believed to be referring
to Ford), ... He says he'll ask for 100 or 150" -- possibly referring
to $100,000 or $150,000.
These conversations don't
delve into specifics about what's on the video. But earlier this year,
allegations surfaced in two media outlets that Ford had been recorded
last winter using crack cocaine. In May, the Star and the website Gawker
published stories saying their reporters saw 90 seconds of a cell-phone video showing Ford, as the Star described it, "inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe."
Later in the video -- as
described by the Star -- an "incoherent" man both the Star and Gawker
claimed was Ford ranted on a number of subjects.
After that report came
out, Ford said he no reason to resign. Yet pressure on him increased
earlier this fall when the Canadian city's police chief announced
investigators had recovered a video that purportedly showed Ford smoking
a crack pipe.
The next week, on
November 5, Ford admitted that he'd "smoked crack cocaine ... probably
in one of my drunken stupors, probably approximately about a year ago."
He denied being an addict.
Even after this admission, Ford refused to resign. Instead he vowed "outright war"
on the city council when, later in the month, it slashed the mayor's
budget and transferred most of his duties to the deputy mayor.
"If you think
American-style politics is nasty, you guys have just attacked Kuwait,"
Ford said then to groans and laughter in the city council chambers.
The mayor's voice is less apparent in the documents released Wednesday, although he is not necessarily insignificant.
Authorities say that
phone intercepts from early on April 20, for instance, indicate one
woman telling a man "that Rob Ford is at the residence." Two minutes
later, at 12:54 a.m., another man allegedly tells the first "to go to
Princess's ... house to deliver drugs to Rob Ford," the court documents
say.
One of the men says
around 2:18 a.m. that Ford was doing drugs, and that the other man "told
him to take a picture of that because of what it would be worth,"
according to the official account.
"(This other man) says
that the Mayor of the City Rob Ford was smoking his rocks today," police
said of another phone conversation from shortly before 6 a.m. that
April morning.
Later that day, Ford was
out helping clean up a city park. He was without his cell phone, the
documents said, citing remarks by the mayor's staff, with indications
that he had either left it or had it taken by those people he'd been
with hours before.
American college student Michaela
Cross struggles to describe her time studying abroad in India. She says
it was full of adventures and beauty but also relentless sexual
harassment, groping and worse.
HIDE CAPTION
'Traveler's heaven, woman's hell'
<<
<
1
2
3
4
5
>
>>
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
U.S. college student Michaela Cross spent three months abroad in India
She says she and others faced repeated sexual harassment in India
She was diagnosed with PTSD and is now on a leave of absence
She shared her story to make others more aware
What action should be taken to combat sexual harassment? Send us your views.
(CNN) -- Michaela Cross, an American student at the
University of Chicago, has written a powerful account of her study
abroad trip to India last year, during which she says she experienced
relentless sexual harassment, groping and worse.
Upon her return, she says
she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and is now on a
mental leave of absence from the school after a public breakdown in the
spring.
Cross, a fair-skinned, red-haired South Asian studies major, titled her story "India: The Story You Never Wanted to Hear." She posted her account on CNN iReport under the username RoseChasm.
Her story has struck a
chord around the world, racking up more than 800,000 page views as of
Wednesday morning. It quickly found its way to India, where many readers
sympathized with the story and men felt compelled to apologize for the
experience she endured. Others called for greater perspective and warned
against making generalizations about India or its people.
India's deadly gang rape
of a 23-year-old woman in New Delhi happened a few days after Cross left
India in December, and she said that helped others understand what she
and her classmates went through. The country has continued to see several high-profile cases of rape and sexual violence cases since then, and the government has introduced tougher laws and punishment for sexual crimes.
On her return, Cross
struggled to find a way to talk about a cultural experience that was
both beautiful and traumatizing, she said in her essay.
She writes:
"Do I tell them about
our first night in the city of Pune, when we danced in the Ganesha
festival, and leave it at that? Or do I go on and tell them how the
festival actually stopped when the American women started dancing, so
that we looked around to see a circle of men filming our every move?
"Do I tell them about
bargaining at the bazaar for beautiful saris costing a few dollars a
piece, and not mention the men who stood watching us, who would push by
us, clawing at our breasts and groins?
"When people compliment
me on my Indian sandals, do I talk about the man who stalked me for 45
minutes after I purchased them, until I yelled in his face in a busy
crowd?"
Later, she writes: "For
three months I lived this way, in a traveler's heaven and a woman's
hell. I was stalked, groped, masturbated at; and yet I had adventures
beyond my imagination. I hoped that my nightmare would end at the
tarmac, but that was just the beginning."
A university spokesman
confirmed Cross is a student at the school and would not comment on her
mental leave. He said the school is committed to students' safety at
home and abroad.
Cross said she didn't
say anything to the professors on the trip until things reached "a
boiling point" -- what she called two rape attempts in 48 hours.
Dipesh Chakrabarty, a
University of Chicago professor who was in India for the first three
weeks of the session, told CNN that he was unaware of Cross' situation.
He noted, though, that the university tries to prepare students for what
they might encounter while abroad. The Civilizations Abroad in India
program was based in the city of Pune, but the students traveled to
other areas during the semester.
"Both faculty and staff
in Chicago and our local Indian staff counsel students before and during
the trip about precautions they need to take in a place like India,"
Chakrabarty said in an e-mail. "Ensuring student safety and well-being
is the top priority of both the College and staff and faculty associated
with the program."
The university provided this statement to CNN:
"Nothing is more
important to us at the University of Chicago than caring for the safety
and well-being of our students, here in Chicago and wherever they go
around the world in the course of their studies. The University offers
extensive support and advice to students before, during and after their
trips abroad, and we are constantly assessing and updating that
preparation in light of events and our students' experiences. We also
place extremely high value on the knowledge our students seek by
traveling and studying other civilizations and cultures, and we are
committed to ensuring they can do so in safety while enriching their
intellectual lives."
Her story sparked a wave
of reaction online, with scores of Indians responding, many with
sympathy to her plight and pointing out that Indian women also
experience high levels of harassment and abuse.
Arvind Rao, a media
professional in Mumbai, was moved to post this comment on her story: "It
thoroughly disgusts me to be known as an Indian male ... An apology is
extremely meager for all the trauma you've gone through." He expressed
hope that politicians would "wake up and implement stricter laws against
crime and sexual harassment on women."
"Every time my
girlfriend goes out alone, I pray that she comes back home safely,"
wrote a commenter using the name Jajabar. "Being an Indian male, I
apologize."
Others, however,
observed that sexual harassment was by no means confined to India, and
Indian commenter Sam1967 warned against condemning his home country when
so many others failed to protect the women living within their borders.
"I accept what happened
was definitely an embarrassment and a cause of trauma for her that might
haunt her for the rest of her life. But this has happened in many other
countries or places and therefore it may not be the right thing to
single out India."
Another woman who said she was on the same University of Chicago sponsored trip to India, posted a response
on CNN iReport calling on people to resist stereotyping Indian men and
recognize that sexual assault happens all over the world.
The student, Katherine
Stewart, said she dealt with her own share of harassment on the trip,
but "in my experiences in India, I have met a solid handful of warm and
honest Indian men -- men who are also college students, men who also
love the thrill of riding on a motorcycle in the busy streets, men who
defended me at necessary times, and men who took the time to get to know
me and my culture. And that should not at all be surprising."
Stewart said she
believed Cross "had every right to tell her story" and in no way wanted
to lessen the significance of her experience. But Stewart, who is black,
cautioned that "when we do not make the distinction that only some men
of a population commit a crime, we develop a stereotype for an entire
population. And when we develop a negative stereotype for a population,
what arises? Racism."
One thing is certain:
Cross sparked a huge discussion with a story that she thought no one
wanted to hear. She said she is thankful for her experiences in India,
and wants to see more international exposure about what women travelers
and residents endure.
"Truth is a gift, a
burden, and a responsibility. And I mean to share it," she writes. "This
is the story you don't want to hear when you ask me about India. But
this is the story you need."
WASHINGTON, DC, June 25, 2012 - Sam left his
second pimp, Cal, when he was able to advertise himself in a Chicago gay
magazine. Sam recalls that it was nice not “having a pimp barking
orders at him or threatening to kill him.”
However, it was not long before he met his third pimp
Vincent. Through Vincent, Sam faced the darkest side of gay prostitution
in Chicago. Providing sexual favors to high level politicians.
Vincent found Sam through an advertisement in a gay magazine. Sam
agreed to meet with Vincent at a restaurant. Later, Vincent took Sam to a
hotel
to take a Polaroid of Sam to show to his A-list clients. In a matter of
a week, Vincent contacted Sam about a client, whose code name was
Larry.
______________ Read also Chicago: A survivor of gay sex trafficking speaks up about his ordeal
_______________
Before the meeting with Larry, Sam received money from Vincent to
go shopping, get a haircut, a manicure, and other expenses. Vincent and
Larry wanted to make sure that Sam looked like a family member, not a
prostitute, when people saw Larry and Sam together.
For Sam, free money was fun for a while, but it was not long
before Sam realized that fun comes with a high price. Sam recalls the
conversation with Vincent in the car on the way to meet with Larry. “[Vincent] told me that if I ever thought about
blackmailing him or his clients, Vincent’s associates would gut me up
like a fish and dispose my body in the lake. I was terrified.” I
realized then this was not game and this man was seriously more
dangerous than anyone I had previously dealt with.” Sam says.
Vincent retained both “A-list” and “call list” clients. His A-list
clients included high profile politicians like Larry. Some were judges.
Sam referred to Vincent’s network as “family secrets.”
Soon after Sam met Larry, he found out that Larry was a former
governor of Illinois. Sam suspects that there was a close connection
between sex trafficking criminals like Vincent and politicians. “Larry once asked me if Vincent was treating me well. When I
said that Vincent bothered me a lot, he said that he didn’t much care
for him, either but he had no choice but to deal with him.”
Illinois politics and politicians have long been associated with
organized crime; the term “underworld” is coined as a result of the
miles of tunnels used by the mob that snake beneath the Windy City.
Going back to the late 1860’s when Chicago was the last gateway
city to the West it was also a last stop for supplies, bourbon and
brothels, and not much has changed over the last two hundred plus years.
Organized crime and Chicago politicians have walked in hand since
the earliest days; recent history puts four past Chicago governors
behind bars – Otto Kerner (D. 1961- 68), Dan Walker (D. 1973-77), George
Ryan (R. 1999-03) and Rod Blagojevich (D. 2003- 09).
While none of these politicians was ever charged with mob
collusion or any sex crimes, they have all gone to prison on charges
related to corruption and their arrests speak to the alleged dalliance
of Chicago politicians and organized crime.
High profile dealings of gangster’s and politicians include the
infamous Al Capone and Tony Arcardo, who ruled Chicago’s rackets for
over 90 years, to Hizzoner’ Mayor Richard J. Daley’s Democratic Machine
and the well publicized cooperation of the Democratic party with
Chicago’s mobs of the day.
Sam alleges that some very high placed Chicago politicians were
his clients, however it bears repeating that none has ever been charged
with prostitution or sex crime related charges which allows people the
plausible deniability that there is a link between organized criminals’
and collusionary politicians, involved in sex trafficking of youth like
Sam.
According to researcher Lucy Berliner, Child Sexual Abuse Investigations, Washington State Institute for Public Policy, “sexually abused children have been known to deny, minimize, “forget” and confuse, but rarely do they lie.” Matching children’s statements against admissions by sexual offenders researchers found that “not
only were the children’s statements accurate, but often they were
understated accounts of the abuse suffered that made the abuse seem less
serious than it actually was.
Since they have not seen it in their lives, they treat it like a
myth, but as Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly says, “We believe
the kid.” However, Sam has not only seen it, he has lived it and
memories of his sexual slavery remain painful.
The sexual violence and harassment from high-powered political
clients, leave these children with even brutal emotional scars. They
should enforce, rather than mitigate the laws. Until the public and
politicians eyes are open to this connection between government, mobs,
and sex traffickers, Chicago will remain as one of the cities in the
country for unchecked youth sex trafficking.
For more information read “The commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth in Illinois” (Pdf archived above).
By coming forward Sam hopes to raise public awareness of youths’
exploitation on all levels to a wider audience. This is not a victimless
crime and it requires that we all be aware of the children in our own
homes and communities that are at risk of predatory sex traffickers and
child molesters.
Police have released a picture of the girl, aged between 14
and 16, who has communicated by drawing pictures which appear to show
her being raped
Mystery: The picture of the girl released today
This is the mystery teenage girl found wandering the streets of Dublin who police fear may be the victim of sex trafficking.
Detectives
have taken the unprecedented step of publishing a photograph of the
child, who is believed to be between 14 and 16 years old.
Despite
several weeks of investigation, and following 115 lines of inquiry,
detectives in Ireland remain baffled about the identity of the young
girl.
The girl was found on Dublin's O'Connell Street - the Irish
capital's main shopping thoroughfare - in a dazed state by gardai on a
routine afternoon patrol on October 10.
She was taken into care
and was initially unable to speak to officers. Instead, she communicated
with them by drawing images, which appeared to show her being raped.
Superintendent
Dave Taylor said: "This investigation has involved over 2,000 hours,
engaging with all the relevant authorities and all the relevant
specialists in this area, but unfortunately we have been unable to
identify her.
"At the moment we need to find out who this child is."
The girl is described as being 5ft 6in and of slim build with long blonde hair.
She was wearing a purple hooded top, tight dark-coloured jeans, flat black shoes and a grey woollen jumper when found.
It is believed the clothes were bought in major Irish retailers but detectives could not determine when they were purchased.
The
girl also has a brace but paediatric orthodontists contacted in Ireland
were unable to shed any light on her identity through their records.
@FergalTodayFM
Gardai have set up an investigation codenamed Operation Shepard in attempt to establish the girl's identity.
A
dedicated telephone line and email address is being manned by officers
for any information from the public which can help the inquiry.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the team in Dublin on +353 1 666 8100 or by email at storestreetappealgarda.ie.
In
a move never before undertaken, the force went to the High Court last
week to seek permission under the Child Care Act to release a photograph
of the girl.
Lawyers argued that it was in extraordinary circumstances after the investigation "hit a brick wall".
Mr
Taylor said the girl was being well treated under an interim care order
by the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Ireland health authorities.
"Obviously we have concerns as to her welfare," he said.
"She
was found in a distressed state, she is being cared for very well at
the moment by professionals but obviously we're at an impasse at the
moment.
"We can't identify her."
The investigation team has
called in Interpol, the missing persons bureau, the forensic science
laboratory, the domestic violence and sexual assault unit and national
immigration authorities.
They have also trawled city centre CCTV
footage, contacted social services and homeless shelters, bed and
breakfasts, hostels as well as airports and ports throughout the
country.
Detectives came up with 15 possible names for their girl through their inquiries but they were "fully checked" and led nowhere.
Rys Yamlas, 70, and her cousin (R) were both raped under the Khmer Rouge regime
PHNOM
PENH, 1 November 2013 (IRIN) - For almost 35 years, Rys Yamlas kept a
secret. The memory of being taken into a forest in her native village of
Ochero in Cambodia, pushed against a tree and then brutally raped by a
Khmer Rouge soldier was too painful to share - until recently.
"It still hurts, but letting the world know about my story makes me feel
better," Rys told IRIN after participating in a recent hearing for
victims of sexual violence under the Khmer Rouge, hosted by a local NGO
on the sidelines of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
The UN-backed Extraordinary Chamber of the Courts in Cambodia (ECCC)
- commonly referred to as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal - earlier this week
heard closing statements from defendants Khieu Samphan (former head of
state) and Nuon Chea (chief ideologist for the Khmer Rouge).
Cambodia Defenders Project (CDP), in cooperation with Transcultural
Psychosocial Organization (TPO) and the Victims’ Support Section of an
ongoing war crimes probe, launched these annual public hearings
in 2011 to give voice to sexual violence survivors during the Khmer
Rouge regime (1975-1979), when an estimated 1.8 million people were
murdered.
The tribunal’s judges ruled in September 2010 that extramarital sexual
crimes could not be tried in their court because while such rape
occurred under the Khmer Rouge’s rule, the judges said it was not
leaders’ policy.
Outlawing extramarital sex
“Those people who were suspected of `immoral’ behaviour, including rape,
were categorized as `bad-elements’ or `enemies’, and were often either
re-educated or killed,” the judges wrote in September 2010,
adding that since the cadres’ policy clearly aimed to prevent rape,
they could not be held responsible for gender-based crimes outside of
marriage.
This policy, also known as Code No. 6, prohibited sexual relations
between unmarried couples, with the possibility of both parties being
executed if discovered.
“Despite the fact that this policy did not manage to prevent rape, it
cannot be considered that rape was one of the crimes used by the CPK
[Communist Party of Kampuchea] leaders,” the judges concluded.
After the women were spurned from seeking justice in court, Duong
Savorn, a lawyer and project coordinator for the NGO said the NGO
“decided to give them [gender-based violence (GBV) survivors] a voice,
to share their experience and to release and acknowledge their
suffering”.
Finding the words
As a civil party in the tribunal, Rys is accustomed to testifying.
She has talked about the hard, forced labour on the rice fields, the
constant fear of being executed and the struggle to find enough food to
survive. That she had been raped, however, she never mentioned publicly
until the 24 September hearing attended by an estimated 400 people.
"When I saw this one woman talk [in 2011] about her experience - she was
much younger than I am - I decided to speak out as well. If she was
brave enough to share her story, I would be, too," Rys, now aged 70,
said.
Two years later, CDP selected her to testify.
There have been three of these public hearings, each attended by five
participants who shared their experiences (including victims and
witnesses of GBV).
Survivors of sexual violence during the time of the Khmer Rouge have
only come forth in recent years, said Duong with CDP, who started
researching the topic in 2009.
"I thought that it [GBV] must have happened," although evidence was scant, he said.
A radio programme Duong started in 2009 that encouraged women to speak
about their experiences with sexual violence, as well as advocacy by
local human rights organizations, led the war crimes tribunal to include
forced marriage as a punishable crime in its proceedings.
Rape not considered war crime
But rape and other acts of sexual violence (except in cases of forced
marriage) would not be considered in court trials on the basis of the
Khmer Rouge’s policy banning extra-marital sex.
Theresa de Langis, an expert on GBV in conflict and post-conflict
countries, is interviewing 25 Cambodian women about their experiences
under the Khmer Rouge for an oral history project.
Instead of preventing rape, de Langis said respondents told her the
Khmer Rouge leaders' policy ensured survivors would not report their
perpetrators, given that the penalty for extramarital sex, including
rape, was death.
".. if I would have reported him, they [Khmer Rouge cadres] would have killed him, but they would have also killed me.."
"When he raped me, I wasn't in a position where I could have cried for
help. He would have killed me. Later, if I would have reported him, they
[Khmer Rouge cadres] would have killed him, but they would have also
killed me," said Rys.
Call for action
Last month, in its most recent review of the government’s compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,
which the country ratified in 1980, the UN questioned the failure of
Cambodian government to address “adequately” sexual violence against
women under the Khmer Rouge regime.
The UN called on the government to “develop effective non-judicial
transitional justice programmes, including the provision of adequate
reparations, psychological and other appropriate support”.
Meanwhile, for Rys, she said just being able to speak publicly has
brought her some peace. "We want the world to know what really
happened.”
Lagos
— Nigerian police have raided a baby factory in the oil city of Port
Harcourt and arrested a woman accused of harbouring six pregnant girls, a
spokeswoman said Wednesday.
"We rescued six girls last week at
different stages of pregnancy from an illegal maternity home in Port
Harcourt," Joy Elomoko of the Imo State police told AFP.
She said the youngest of the girls was 14, without disclosing the ages of the others.
"We have also arrested the proprietress of the clinic and she is assisting us in our investigation," she said.
Elomoko said the raid on the Port Harcourt home followed the arrest of a girl with a baby in nearby Owerri on October 15.
"A
lady was found in suspicious circumstances with a day old baby and
after interrogation she confessed that she gave birth to a baby in Port
Harcourt," the police spokeswoman said.
Elomoko said police
detectives followed the girl to Port Harcourt where six expectant
mothers were found in a clinic run by a woman.
"The woman could not produce any document authorising her to operate the clinic and she was subsequently arrested," she said.
She said the girls also told police that they were being kept in the home to make babies which would be sold to willing buyers.
Elomoko said the suspect would be taken to court after police investigation.
Nigerian
police have uncovered a series of alleged baby factories in recent
years, notably in the southeastern part of the country. Baby boys can
sell for a price of around $250 (180 euros), baby girls for slightly
less.
Human trafficking, including the selling of children, is the
third most common crime in Nigeria behind fraud and drug trafficking,
according to the United Nations
Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil
producer, but poverty is widespread across the country and most of the
estimated 160 million people still live on less than two dollars a day.
In
the online offer for their daughter, the couple allegedly wrote that
they couldn't afford to raise the child and were looking for a wealthy
family to adopt her.
Investigators say the suspects
then wound up using the money to shop online for the smartphones and
other high-end items. On Friday, the couple appeared in court to dispute
they sold the child and to argue that they simply gave the child to a
family that could better care for her. But prosecutors say they have
evidence of a large cash deposit being made to the suspects' bank
account.
Prosecutors also allege the sale was
planned for months, with the mother even trying to hide her pregnancy by
telling neighbors her baby bump was the result of a large tumor.
A screen grab of the video showing a man in a scuffle with a woman in Saudi Arabia. (Photo Courtesy: Arab News)
Al Arabiya
A video purporting to show a group of men sexually harassing women
in an eastern province of Saudi Arabia sparked outrage on Wednesday on
social media.
It led many social media users to call for harsher laws punishing sexual harassment in the kingdom.
The
video shows a group of men chasing women in what seems to be a car
park, with an apparent scuffle going on between the two groups.
A
police spokesman for the province in question told Al Arabiya that
they have seen the video and will analyze it to identify the harassers,
describing the incident as “inappropriate behavior.”
A Twitter hashtag for the incident has opened the debate on the issue of sexual harassment in Saudi Arabia.
However,
former judge and member of the Shura Council Mohammad al-Dahim told Al
Arabiya that sexual harassment is not a phenomenon that occurs in Saudi
Arabia, even if it appears so on social media.
A Scottish exhibition revels in wickedness and grotesque taboos
The Magic Circle’ (1886) by John William Waterhouse
From
a feminist perspective, the news that John Everett Millais’ “Ophelia”
and John William Waterhouse’s “The Lady of Shalott” came top in the
recent poll of favourite British masterpieces was disappointing. The
fact that these two hapless women – one of them dead, the other headed
that way, both felled by unrequited love – captured the nation’s heart
suggests that passivity is still a vote-winner when deciding who’s the
fairest of them all.
The exhibition about witches at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
is in essence a voyage through male titillations and terrors. But it
was impossible not to feel cheered by such a panoply of women, proud in
their perversity and uniformly potent, especially as the final section
unveils the female artists – Kiki Smith, Paula Rego, Ana Maria Pacheco –
who have reclaimed history’s most persistent bad girl for their own.
From
Albrecht Dürer to Cindy Sherman by way of Salvator Rosa, Goya,
Delacroix and William Fuseli, we are treated to a mosaic of feminine
malefice that leaves one awed at the hysteria lurking within the male
psyche. (An alternative title for the exhibition would be: “How do I
fear thee? Let me count the ways.”)
One remarkable characteristic of the representation of witches is how
little it has changed over the centuries. John Bellany’s lantern-jawed
she-man “The Witch” (1969) talks back to a string of androgynous crones,
including the bald hag in Goya’s etching “When Day Breaks We Will be
Off” (1799) and the hideous old woman cackling over a man’s body in Hans
Baldung Grien’s 1544 woodcut “Bewitched Groom”.
The figure of the witch gave the artist free rein to explore taboos.
Here are women who look like men disporting themselves with animals –
cats, goats, owls and assorted monsters – that are clearly no ordinary
pets. Among many images of witches riding beasts across the sky, the
British Museum’s Dürer engraving “Witch Riding Backwards on a Goat”
(1500) is a marvel of graphic virtuosity, delineating every hair of the
goat’s pelt and every wrinkle of its rider’s tummy. The plethora of
semi-naked elderly women conjured in merciless, lewd verisimilitude
suggests that artists relished the challenge of depicting a nude that
was the antithesis of the young, beautiful archetype.
Particularly
imaginative is the Ashmolean’s etching of “The Allegory of Discord”
(1770) by German engraver Melchior Küsel, the withered dugs of the
serpent-haired fury rhyme provocatively with her snaky tresses and the
flaming torch with which she stokes the fires of the argument that the
gods are having on a passing cloud.
Such images draw much of their power from the near-surreal detail
afforded by the medium of engraving. That this show abounds with a
wealth of outstanding examples is no coincidence. Without the print
revolution, witchcraft would never have ballooned into a phenomenon that
would electrify Europe.
Aside from the distribution of images, the print industry opened the
gates to a flood of religious texts denouncing witches while analysing
their deeds in prurient detail. The most influential was the “Malleus
Maleficarum”, first published in 1486-87 by two Dominican friars and
subsequently reprinted in the 1490s in Nuremberg by Anton Koberger,
whose 1494 edition is on display here.
‘The Four Witches’ (1497) by Albrecht Dürer
Koberger
was Dürer’s godfather, so it’s probable that the German master would
have been familiar with the text, which explained that behind women’s
propensity to witchcraft lay their inclination to deceit, debauchery,
stupidity, superstition and vanity. The two Dürer prints on show – the
aforementioned “Witch Riding” and an earlier engraving “The Four
Witches” (1497), which shows a quartet of nude, pneumatic sirens
clustered around a skull – were influential prototypes for the evolution
of an iconography that shuttled between the witch as exquisite young
maid and as horrid old hag, a schizophrenia that mirrored the irrational
misogyny from which it sprang.
Nowhere was persecution more relentless than in Scotland, where the
obsession of King James VI (James I of England) with witches saw him
personally supervise their torture during the North Berwick witch
trials.
Quite rightly then, the curators have included a section devoted to representations of the trio in Macbeth.
(Shakespeare probably based their storm-stirring mischief on the king’s
conviction that Scottish witches had summoned a tempest that nearly
drowned him at sea). In a glorious pen-and-wash drawing, 17th-century
Flemish sculptor John Michael Rysbrack highlights the women’s manly
muscles and rats-tail hair with delicate inky scribbles. William Blake
fantasises of voluptuous blondes guarded by a lascivious donkey.
‘Untitled No 151’ (1985) from the Fairy Tales series by Cindy Sherman
Most
evocative of these is John Martin’s oil painting “Macbeth, Banquo and
the Three Witches” (c1820) where the trio descend in a vaporous spiral
out of a shimmering, iridescent mountain range, scaled to apocalyptic
proportions, that dwarfs the male protagonists and the kilt-clad army
that is massing on the slopes below.
As a champion of Enlightenment clarity, Goya scorned the witch as a
figment of fevered Catholic imaginations. Yet he still painted terror
with medieval glee. On loan from London’s National Gallery, his oil
painting “A Scene from the Forcibly Bewitched” (1798) shows a cleric who
has stumbled into a witch’s bedroom frantically lighting his lamp while
demonic donkeys rear out of the dark behind him in a spooky medley of
white-tipped noses and blade-sharp hooves.
One possible danger when feminism reclaims the figure of the witch is
that irony cancels out the shiver factor which is essential if the
politics are to catch fire. Paula Rego never falls into that trap. Her
etching “Straw Burning”, from the Pendle Witches series (1996), inspired
by Blake Morrison’s poetry cycle about the 17th-century Pendle
witch-hunts, figures a stocky, stiletto-wearing bride about to be
consumed by flames as her occult menagerie dances around her.
Rego, the Portuguese-born heiress to Goya’s ambiguous Iberian
darkness, scratches and shades her heroine with a graphic majesty to
rival her predecessor. The bride may be doomed but her dark arts will
live on in those devilish creatures.
‘Witches and Wicked Bodies’, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, until 3 November, www.nationalgalleries.org
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013. You may share using our article tools.
Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
doors. Those looking to enhance their encounters can shop at countless
“adult health product” stores and on the Internet. 
CNN iReport
©The Trustees of the British Museum
©Cindy Sherman