Saturday, December 28, 2013
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Friday, December 20, 2013
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Monday, December 16, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Friday, December 13, 2013
Ethiopia Workers Return From Saudi Arabia Telling of Abuse
Bloomberg News
Executive News
Ethiopian immigrants returning from Saudi Arabia arrive at Addis Ababas Bole... Read More
“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
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Somalia: Somaliland Man Stabs Wife, Seizes Baby, Edna Adan Helps Her
By Katy Migiro, 3 December 2013
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.
http://www.trust.org/item/20131203165707-e4mp7/
With Glut of Lonely Men, China Has an Approved Outlet for Unrequited Lust
Asia Pacific
Guangzhou Journal
Adam Dean for The New York Times
A Place Where Capitalism and Hedonism Meet:
Three decades after China began shedding its prudish Mao-era mores, sex is now a big business there.
By DAN LEVIN
Published: November 27, 2013
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.
Multimedia
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.
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.”
Multimedia
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.
Documents: Criminal suspects claimed Rob Ford tried to buy damaging video
December 5, 2013 -- Updated 0443 GMT (1243 HKT)
Source: CNN
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- 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
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.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Sexual harassment in India: 'The story you never wanted to hear'
Join the conversation
CNN iReport
August 23, 2013 -- Updated 1811 GMT (0211 HKT)
HIDE CAPTION
'Traveler's heaven, woman's hell'
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."
CNN's Sarah Brown contributed to this story.
Chicago: A gay sex trafficking victim talks about his high-profile clients
Photo: Associated Press
Youngbee Dale
Documents
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.
Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/rights-so-divine/2012/jun/25/Chicago-A-gay-sex-trafficking-victim-talks-about/#ixzz2maFAOGKg
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