- 6 hours ago
- From the section Europe
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Small women protest against Egypt's justice minister decree on 'summer marriages'
ahramonline
A group of 15 women stood on the steps of the Journalists’ Syndicate on
Tuesday night with black make-up around their eyes to symbolise
bruises, and signs that read, “No to violence against women.”
Aya Hosny, one of the organisers of the small protest told Aswat
Masriya that the point was to oppose a new law issued by the minister of
justice that “legalises touristic marriages,” and to oppose all shapes
and forms of violence that women are exposed to.
Earlier this month, the minister of justice issued decree No. 9200 for the year 2015, requiring that foreign men pay 50,000 Egyptian pounds in investment certificates at the National Bank of Egypt if they wish to marry women 25 or more years younger than they are.
The decree was met with a lot of criticism from women, activists, and human and women’s rights organizations that stated the law is legalising and facilitating what are called seasonal summer marriages or “touristic marriages” in Egypt.
The term references the phenomenon of wealthy foreign men, primarily from Gulf countries, marrying much younger Egyptian women, usually temporarily, over the summer.
Hegazy described the law in a comment to Aswat Masriya, as a decision “to sell Egyptian girls in slave markets.”
Lawyer Rabab Abdu, vice president of the Egyptian Society to Support Juveniles and Human Rights, previously said that the minister’s decision to “put a price tag on touristic marriages” flies in the face of efforts to combat human trafficking.
"Now these women can marry these men, who are decades older, only on condition that the men can afford the price. This takes place in a legal setting, with the blessing of the ministry of justice," she told Aswat Masriya earlier.
The protest came shortly after an international awareness campaign entitled “16 days of activism against gender-based violence,” which has taken place every year from 25 November to 10 December, since 1991.
Hegazy clarified that she chose this date, after the end of the campaign, so that action for ending violence against women can continue throughout the year.
Hala Hassan, one of the protesters, told Aswat Masriya that she was subjected to physical violence and humiliation from her now ex-husband. She added that he is unemployed and has not provided her or their child with financial support since their separation.
“I wish that the law could punish and jail any man who hits his wife, and that men in Egypt learn to respect women,” she said.
More than 30% of ex-wives in Egypt have been subject to physical violence at the hands of their husbands, according to a Demographic Health Survey in Egypt for 2014, the state-owned Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics announced in November.
Hegazy added that the group of protestors are not driven by any political parties or factions, but that she and a group of her journalist colleagues created this event on Facebook.
The protest also received approval from the ministry of interior, the event said.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/177257/Egypt/Politics-/Small-women-protest-against-Egypts-justice-ministe.aspx
Egypt's Justice Minister Ahmed El-Zend (Photo: Ahram)
Earlier this month, the minister of justice issued decree No. 9200 for the year 2015, requiring that foreign men pay 50,000 Egyptian pounds in investment certificates at the National Bank of Egypt if they wish to marry women 25 or more years younger than they are.
The decree was met with a lot of criticism from women, activists, and human and women’s rights organizations that stated the law is legalising and facilitating what are called seasonal summer marriages or “touristic marriages” in Egypt.
The term references the phenomenon of wealthy foreign men, primarily from Gulf countries, marrying much younger Egyptian women, usually temporarily, over the summer.
Hegazy described the law in a comment to Aswat Masriya, as a decision “to sell Egyptian girls in slave markets.”
Lawyer Rabab Abdu, vice president of the Egyptian Society to Support Juveniles and Human Rights, previously said that the minister’s decision to “put a price tag on touristic marriages” flies in the face of efforts to combat human trafficking.
"Now these women can marry these men, who are decades older, only on condition that the men can afford the price. This takes place in a legal setting, with the blessing of the ministry of justice," she told Aswat Masriya earlier.
The protest came shortly after an international awareness campaign entitled “16 days of activism against gender-based violence,” which has taken place every year from 25 November to 10 December, since 1991.
Hegazy clarified that she chose this date, after the end of the campaign, so that action for ending violence against women can continue throughout the year.
Hala Hassan, one of the protesters, told Aswat Masriya that she was subjected to physical violence and humiliation from her now ex-husband. She added that he is unemployed and has not provided her or their child with financial support since their separation.
“I wish that the law could punish and jail any man who hits his wife, and that men in Egypt learn to respect women,” she said.
More than 30% of ex-wives in Egypt have been subject to physical violence at the hands of their husbands, according to a Demographic Health Survey in Egypt for 2014, the state-owned Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics announced in November.
Hegazy added that the group of protestors are not driven by any political parties or factions, but that she and a group of her journalist colleagues created this event on Facebook.
The protest also received approval from the ministry of interior, the event said.
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/177257/Egypt/Politics-/Small-women-protest-against-Egypts-justice-ministe.aspx
[Video] Paid dating with Japanese teenage girls booming
World News of Monday, 28 December 2015
Source: Al Jazeera
Japan has recorded an increase in the number of child exploitation cases reported from 2014 [Reuters
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Japan has recorded an increase in the number of child exploitation cases reported from 2014 [Reuters
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This message comes as Japan records an increase in the number of exploitation cases reported from 2014.
In October, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, the UN's special rapporteur on child prostitution and pornography, angered Japan's government by saying that up to 13 percent of schoolgirls had taken part in Enjo Kosai, or compensated dating.
She said later that the figure was not official, and would not be in her final report. But campaigners argue the lack of official figures is itself a sign of complacency by Japanese authorities.
In the capital Tokyo, infantilised sexual culture has become accepted, and Japanese rights groups are campaigning to end the practice.
Mai, a student, is working part-time promoting a so-called joshi kosei, or high-school girl cafe, in Tokyo's Akihabara district, where adult men pay to sit and chat with teenage girls.
"Some of the men are my grandpa's age, and I do sometimes get short of things to talk about," Mai, dressed in her school uniform, told Al Jazeera.
She said working in such a cafe beats her old restaurant job, and she insisted that her customers treated her well.
'Absolute requirement'
At the cafe where Mai works, her boss picks the staff of 15 to 18-year-old girls.
"Basically, they need to be pretty. That is an absolute requirement. They should look slim and stylish. Also, they need to be smart," Koichiro Fukuyama, the cafe owner, told Al Jazeera.
But Fukuyama said there is no prostitution involved.
Shihoko Fujiwara, spokesman of the women's right's group Lighthouse, said the culture of glamorising the practice is disturbing.
"This concept of Enjo Kosai - compensated dating - has been around for how long now, 20 years? And we don't have any official figures for that? For me that was very shocking," she said.
In Japan, it took until 2014 for possession of child abuse images to be made illegal - but not cartoon depictions of such abuse.
Campaigners said these images can be used in a much more specific way, by child abusers to convince their victims that their criminal actions are in fact perfectly normal.
Employing teenagers in adult entertainment is illegal - but, in Japan, it seems, good for business.
Areas in Nairobi where you are likely to be carjacked
1. Ngong Road - The stretch between City Mortuary and Dagoretti Corner is notorious. Criminals usually target Public Service Vehicles (PSVs). They pose as passengers before striking while armed with pistols and crude weapons.
They steal cash and other valuables. Occasionally, they will commandeer a PSV to either Joseph Kangethe Road or near Jamhuri Park where victims are abandoned.
2. Jogoo Road - The Makadara and Hamza bus stages are the most dangerous. The criminals target both public and private motor vehicles. From the PSVs, the carjackers demand cash and personal valuables.
Private cars are either used as getaway vehicles r to block other motorists targeted by the criminals.
Sometimes the stolen cars are either driven to Dandora dumpsite, where they are abandoned, or Kariobangi Light Industries, where they are cannibalized.
3. Forest Road - This road has ruthless criminals. They will pull the trigger at the slightest provocation.
Their motive is never clear, but it is suspected that the criminals are gangs for hire executing specific missions before disappearing into the nearby Karura Forest.
4. Kariobangi Roundabout - Victims in personal cars are trailed before being attacked while approaching this roundabout. The criminals are hardly interested in the car, — it’s either the life or valuables of the targeted motorist.
5. Mombasa Road (between Athi River and Mlolongo) - The gang appears to mainly target top-ofthe- range sports utility vehicles said to be on high demand in Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan. The criminals pull the ‘bump and rob’ trick on victims.
The ploy involves crooks hitting motorists from behind before violently robbing them of either cars, cash or electronic gadgets when the motorists stop to assess the damage.
6. Kangundo Road - Criminals operating on the stretch between Saika estate and Ruai are more interested in personal vehicles. The stolen cars are rarely found.
It is believed they are taken to Kariobangi Light Industries where they are dismantled and their accessories sold as spare parts. Targeted motorists are blocked and those who fail to cooperate are attacked and thrown out of their cars.
7. Gitanga Road - This Lavington leafy suburb stretch harbours bold and armed criminals. They walk on foot after vandalizing streetlights in spots where they intend to operate. Emerging from darkness, they pounce at gunpoint and order victims. They steal their cash, phones and other valuables.
8. South B estate - Flying Squad officers say driving in this estate is risky. They have received many complaints from victims who have lost vehicles to these gangs.
Read more: http://www.sde.co.ke/thenairobian/article/2000186251/areas-in-nairobi-where-you-are-likely-to-be-carjacked
Body of Kenyan woman killed in Saudi Arabia arrives six months later
The body of a Kenyan Muslim woman who died under unclear circumstances in Saudi Arabia in July arrived in Kenya on Monday.
Mwanakombo Athman died aged 39 in the country where she had worked for nine months, and will be buried in Msambweni, Kwale county on Tuesday.
Her body had been detained at a morgue over unpaid dues. Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko's rescue team offered to transport it to Kwale following its arrival in Nairobi at about 10am.
Another Kenyan, Salama Nyamvula, who also died under unclear circumstances in Abu Dhabi, UAE, was buried last week in Kilifi county's Mtwapa area.
Mombasa Nominated Senator Emma Mbura earlier said she received a distress call from a woman in Riyadh, saying she reported that her boss had threatened her.
"Nimepokea simu kutoka kwa dada Bahati Karisa Thoya alieko Riyadh. Ameambiwa na boss wake apige simu nyumbani Kilifi na aage watu wake maana kesho atauwawa," she wrote on her Facebook page in Kiswahili.
"Agent yuko Uganda House, 2nd floor, Alsayar office, Nairobi. Let us all try to save this lady before it's too late. Kindly share."
This translates to: "I have received a distress call from Bahati Karisa Thoya who is in Riyadh. She has been told by her boss to call her family in Kilifi and bid them goodbye as she will be killed tomorrow. Her agent can be found at Uganda House, 2nd floor, Alsayar office, Nairobi."
Several leaders have asked the state to launch investigations into the deaths of Kenyans working abroad, in the Middle East in particular.
http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2015/12/28/body-of-kenyan-woman-killed-in-saudi-arabia-arrives-six-months-later_c1266753
Mwanakombo Athman died aged 39 in the country where she had worked for nine months, and will be buried in Msambweni, Kwale county on Tuesday.
Her body had been detained at a morgue over unpaid dues. Nairobi Senator Mike Sonko's rescue team offered to transport it to Kwale following its arrival in Nairobi at about 10am.
Another Kenyan, Salama Nyamvula, who also died under unclear circumstances in Abu Dhabi, UAE, was buried last week in Kilifi county's Mtwapa area.
Mombasa Nominated Senator Emma Mbura earlier said she received a distress call from a woman in Riyadh, saying she reported that her boss had threatened her.
"Nimepokea simu kutoka kwa dada Bahati Karisa Thoya alieko Riyadh. Ameambiwa na boss wake apige simu nyumbani Kilifi na aage watu wake maana kesho atauwawa," she wrote on her Facebook page in Kiswahili.
"Agent yuko Uganda House, 2nd floor, Alsayar office, Nairobi. Let us all try to save this lady before it's too late. Kindly share."
This translates to: "I have received a distress call from Bahati Karisa Thoya who is in Riyadh. She has been told by her boss to call her family in Kilifi and bid them goodbye as she will be killed tomorrow. Her agent can be found at Uganda House, 2nd floor, Alsayar office, Nairobi."
Several leaders have asked the state to launch investigations into the deaths of Kenyans working abroad, in the Middle East in particular.
http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2015/12/28/body-of-kenyan-woman-killed-in-saudi-arabia-arrives-six-months-later_c1266753
Rape regulations: ISIS laws on 'proper' sex slave treatment revealed
RT
The Islamic State terrorist group has attempted to codify the
sexual relations between its fighters and women they capture, by issuing
a special ruling on when it’s OK to rape a female slave.
A "fatwa," which
is what a learned interpretation of the Islamic law is called, was
released by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in late January as “some
of the brothers have committed violation in the matter of treatment of
the female slaves. These violations are not permitted by Sharia law
because these rules have not been dealt with in ages.”“Are there any warnings pertaining to this matter?” the authors of the document wondered.
The ruling, which was among a batch of terrorist papers obtained by the US Special Operations Forces during a raid in Syria in May, was viewed by Reuters.
In the fatwa, the enslaved women and children of the infidels have been called “one of the graces which Allah have bestowed” upon the Islamic State.
According to the UN, the jihadists have abducted thousands of women and girls as young as 12 years old, selling them as sex slaves or giving to own militants as rewards.
The IS theologians from the Committee of Research and Fatwas have come up with over a dozen rules, which the fighters are to follow in order to make their sexual practices comply with the group’s laws.
READ MORE: ISIS sets up ‘spoils of war’ dept to handle slaves, stolen treasure
The fatwa forbids the owners of female slaves to have intercourse with the woman during menstrual cycle.
Sexual contact with a pregnant captive carrying a child is also forbidden, with the document stressing that “it’s not permissible to cause her to abort if she’s pregnant.”
“If the owner of a female captive, who has a daughter suitable for intercourse, has sexual relations with the latter, he is not permitted to have intercourse with her mother and she is permanently off limits to him,” the paper said.
According to the ruling, a fighter who owns two sisters, could only have intercourse with one of them.
The father is restricted from engaging in sexual relations with a slave owned by his son and vice versa, the fatwa No. 64, dated January 29, 2015, said.
#ISIS sanctions organ harvesting from living ‘apostates’… even if it kills them https://t.co/hs2POrfrZxpic.twitter.com/FTxxgrXRJ0
— RT (@RT_com) December 26, 2015
The slave owners were also instructed to “show compassion towards her (female captive), be kind to her, not humiliate her, and not assign her work she is unable to perform."
The women shouldn’t be sold to individuals about whom it’s known that they’ll mistreat the female slave, the fatwa concluded.
The document was among a number of bizarre rulings by Islamic State, which recently became available to the press.
One of the fatwas, for example, justified harvesting organs from infidels in order to save the life a Muslim.
"The apostate's life and organs don't have to be respected and may be taken with impunity," it said.
https://www.rt.com/news/327387-isis-rape-sex-slavery-law/
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Friday, December 25, 2015
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
'The abuse started the day I met him'
15 December 2015 Last updated at 00:34 GMT
Police
in England and Wales received more than 900,000 calls about domestic
abuse last year - an average of more than 100 calls an hour, according
to a report by the police watchdog.
Belgium Syria: How a Belgian teenager was lured to jihad
BBC
"I wish everything could go back to the way that it was," sighed Najat, remembering her 19-year-old son.
Last month, jihadist group Islamic State (IS) claimed that Abdelmalek Boutalliss had blown himself up in Iraq.Originally from the Belgian city of Kortrijk, he had been preparing for his exams when he told his mother, "Don't expect me for dinner".
The next day he sent her a photo from Turkey of him with his best friend, saying he was heading to Syria.
Idriss Boutalliss followed his son to Syria twice, in a desperate attempt to bring him back.
On the second occasion, after a 10-day search, he finally managed to meet him near Raqqa - the self-proclaimed capital of IS.
Abdelmalek refused to leave, telling his father that he would be jailed immediately if he returned to Belgium.
"I spoke to the police and they assured me if you return you will not go to prison," his father told him. But the teenager said he was lying.
Committed to attacks
At around the same time, in July 2014, Belgian researcher Montasser Alde'emeh spent three weeks in Syria trying to understand what made so many young people from Belgium go there."There are about 500 Belgian jihadis [in Syria and Iraq]," he said. "About 70 of them have been killed."
On his return, he set up a centre aiming to counter extremism and convince Belgians in Syria and Iraq to come home.
These lists can reportedly be found in jihadist training camps.
During a series of conversations via the Whatsapp instant messaging service, the Belgian academic tried to change the teenager's mind, urging him to think what effect it would have on his mother.
Whatsapp conversation: Excerpts
Montasser Alde'emeh: You should not do that. Remove your name from the list of suicide bombers.
Abdelmalek: Allah willing, I will carry out a "martyrdom operation"
Montasser: Do not blow yourself up, brother. Do not do it. Can't you imagine how sad your parents will be?
Abdelmalek: You are still looking for the truth, unlike me. I found the truth. I kept searching in Belgium and found it.
Montasser: I hate that you are doing that. Don't you realise to what extent I care about you?
Abdelmalek: I don't care. My path to paradise is not in your hands. Whatever you say, I won't listen.
Montasser: Your parents are still Muslims and they want you to return.
Abdelmalek: If they are real believers they should come here.
Road to radicalisation
Many young European men have been lured by IS via the internet but Abdelmalek Boutalliss was recruited locally in Belgium.His mother, Najat, said he had begun to show interest in Islam when a teacher began asking him about the religion.
At that point he started visiting a local mosque and his family thinks he was recruited there by a jihadist who had previously fought in Syria.
Young Muslims are still being radicalised in Belgium.
Observers believe they feel alienated from society and angered by Western involvement in Syria.
Since October, the number of Belgian jihadists has risen by 39, according to Belgian expert Pieter Van Ostaeyen.
Several Belgian jihadists took part in the atrocities and the suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud came from the Brussels district of Molenbeek.
Three days before the attacks, on 10 November, IS militants announced that the Belgian teenager they had dubbed Abu Nusaybah al-Baljiki had carried out a suicide attack in Haditha in western Iraq.
IS said he had destroyed three Iraqi military vehicles and killed everyone inside. Iraqi officials insisted his attack had been foiled and he blew himself up some distance from the vehicles.
Whether or not Abdelmalek Boutallis committed murder in western Iraq, his mother Najat still refuses to believe he is dead.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35167576
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Monday, December 14, 2015
Islamic State sex slave price list authentic, $165 for a child - UN
RT
“The girls get peddled like barrels of petrol,” Bangura told Bloomberg. “One girl can be sold and bought by five or six different men. Sometimes these fighters sell the girls back to their families for thousands of dollars of ransom.”
READ MORE: ISIS releases horrifying sex slave pamphlet, justifies child rape
The price tariff is simple – the older they are the cheaper they are. All prices are quoted in Iraqi Dinars but US dollar equivalent shows that radical fighters can get children aged 1 to 9 for about $165, prices for adolescent girls are $124 and it’s less for women over 20. Women over 40 cost as little as $41.
Purchasing
and bidding is based on hierarchy and how much you can afford. Islamic
State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militia commanders are offered the first
choice of their victims. Then wealthy foreign civilian perverts from the
region are permitted to offer their bids that could fetch thousands of
dollars, Bangura said. The remainder is offered to the fighters at
prices prescribed by the Sex Slave list.
Breaking the sex trade in IS-controlled territory is almost impossible, Bangura believes.
“They have a machinery, they have a program,” she said. “They have a manual on how you treat these women. They have a marriage bureau which organizes all of these ‘marriages’ and the sale of women. They have a price list.”
“It’s not an ordinary rebel group,” she said. “When you dismiss them as such, then you are using the tools you are used to. This is different. They have the combination of a conventional military and a well-run organized state.”
READ MORE: Women and girls recall ‘systematic rape’ by ISIS militants – HRW
Thousands of Iraqi women have already been forced into sex slavery, with as many as 3,000 women and girls having been taken captive from the Yazidi tribe in Iraq over the course of the militants’ offensive across the region. IS also managed to capture and enslave other minorities in the territory they control. At the end of last year, Islamic State released a pamphlet on rules about how female slaves, women and children should be treated by its fighters.
The jihadists argue that capturing women because they are unbelievers
in Islam is justified. According to the pamphlet, IS members are
permitted to have sex with the women, and is permitted as soon as a
woman is captured if she is a virgin. If she is not, the manual reads, “her uterus must be purified" before intercourse.
The pamphlet also says that a female slave can have a “disciplinary beating,” with only her face left untouched. However IS forbids its fighters to beat the slaves for the purpose of achieving gratification or for torture.
https://www.rt.com/news/311612-un-isis-sex-slave/
After circulating for almost a year, the UN has finally
confirmed the authenticity of the Islamic State Sex Price list being
offered to their fighters and other men trying to purchase sex slaves as
young as one for $165.
Originally
published online in November, the UN got hold of the actual hard copy
in April, but was reluctant to confirm its authenticity. Now Zainab
Bangura, the UN's Special Representative of the Secretary-General for
Sexual Violence in Conflict, said the sex menu choices are real.“The girls get peddled like barrels of petrol,” Bangura told Bloomberg. “One girl can be sold and bought by five or six different men. Sometimes these fighters sell the girls back to their families for thousands of dollars of ransom.”
READ MORE: ISIS releases horrifying sex slave pamphlet, justifies child rape
The price tariff is simple – the older they are the cheaper they are. All prices are quoted in Iraqi Dinars but US dollar equivalent shows that radical fighters can get children aged 1 to 9 for about $165, prices for adolescent girls are $124 and it’s less for women over 20. Women over 40 cost as little as $41.
#ISIS selling sex slaves, the younger the better: @UNhttp://t.co/C6qZmkWwic@smh#ausdef@flwaustralia#Syria#Iraqpic.twitter.com/veksDj3Qtb
— David Feeney (@Feeney4Batman) August 4, 2015
UN tells horror-tale of ISIS sex slaves - http://t.co/Xiu2XdEopnpic.twitter.com/dOjq4P672v
— Newsnish (@newsnish) May 11, 2015
“They have a machinery, they have a program,” she said. “They have a manual on how you treat these women. They have a marriage bureau which organizes all of these ‘marriages’ and the sale of women. They have a price list.”
“It’s not an ordinary rebel group,” she said. “When you dismiss them as such, then you are using the tools you are used to. This is different. They have the combination of a conventional military and a well-run organized state.”
READ MORE: Women and girls recall ‘systematic rape’ by ISIS militants – HRW
Thousands of Iraqi women have already been forced into sex slavery, with as many as 3,000 women and girls having been taken captive from the Yazidi tribe in Iraq over the course of the militants’ offensive across the region. IS also managed to capture and enslave other minorities in the territory they control. At the end of last year, Islamic State released a pamphlet on rules about how female slaves, women and children should be treated by its fighters.
Islamic State selling sex slaves, the younger the better, claims UN official http://t.co/Wk8NEtsmHFpic.twitter.com/JC4Ln3ZBlW
— Y u no breaking news (@discoveringabot) August 4, 2015
The pamphlet also says that a female slave can have a “disciplinary beating,” with only her face left untouched. However IS forbids its fighters to beat the slaves for the purpose of achieving gratification or for torture.
https://www.rt.com/news/311612-un-isis-sex-slave/
AP: Global supermarkets selling shrimp peeled by slaves
30 photos
In this Monday, Nov. 9, 2015 photo, children and teenagers sit together to be registered by... Read more
After being sold to the Gig Peeling Factory, they were at the mercy of their Thai bosses, trapped with nearly 100 other Burmese migrants. Children worked alongside them, including a girl so tiny she had to stand on a stool to reach the peeling table. Some had been there for months, even years, getting little or no pay. Always, someone was watching.
No names were ever used, only numbers given by their boss — Tin Nyo Win was No. 31.
The problem is fueled by corruption and complicity among police and authorities. Arrests and prosecutions are rare. Raids can end up sending migrants without proper paperwork to jail, while owners go unpunished.
____
More than 2,000 trapped fishermen have been freed this year as a result of an ongoing Associated Press investigative series into slavery in the Thai seafood industry. The reports also have led to a dozen arrests, millions of dollars' worth of seizures and proposals for new federal laws.
____
Hundreds of shrimp peeling sheds are hidden in plain sight on residential streets or behind walls with no signs in Samut Sakhon, a port town an hour outside Bangkok. The AP found one factory that was enslaving dozens of workers, and runaway migrants led rights groups to the Gig shed and a third facility. All three sheds held 50 to 100 people each, many locked inside.
As Tin Nyo Win soon found out for himself, there's no easy escape. One woman had been working at Gig for eight years. Another man ended up peeling shrimp there after breaking free from an equally brutal factory.
"I was shocked after working there a while, and I realized there was no way out," said Tin Nyo Win, 22, who has a baby face and teeth stained red from chewing betel nut.
"I told my wife, 'We're in real trouble. If something ends up going wrong, we're going to die.'"
Last month, AP journalists followed and filmed trucks loaded with freshly peeled shrimp from the Gig shed to major Thai exporting companies and then, using U.S. customs records and Thai industry reports, tracked it globally. They also traced similar connections from another factory raided six months earlier, and interviewed more than two dozen workers from both sites.
U.S. customs records show the shrimp made its way into the supply chains of major U.S. food stores and retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Dollar General and Petco, along with restaurants such as Red Lobster and Olive Garden.
It also entered the supply chains of some of America's best-known seafood brands and pet foods, including Chicken of the Sea and Fancy Feast, which are sold in grocery stores from Safeway and Schnucks to Piggly Wiggly and Albertsons. AP reporters went to supermarkets in all 50 states and found shrimp products from supply chains tainted with forced labor.
European and Asian import and export records are confidential, but the Thai companies receiving shrimp tracked by the AP all say they ship to Europe and Asia as well.
The businesses that responded condemned the practices that lead to these conditions. Many said they were launching investigations when told their supply chains were linked to people held against their will in sheds like the Gig factory, which sat behind a gate off a busy street, between railroad tracks and a river.
Inside the large warehouse, toilets overflowed with feces, and the putrid smell of raw sewage wafted from an open gutter just outside the work area. Young children ran barefoot through suffocating dorm rooms. Entire families labored side-by-side at rows of stainless steel counters piled high with tubs of shrimp.
Tin Nyo Win and his wife, Mi San, were cursed for not peeling fast enough and called "cows" and "buffalos." They were allowed to go outside for food only if one of them stayed behind as insurance against running away.
But escaping was all they could think about.
____
Shrimp is the most-loved seafood in the U.S., with Americans downing 1.3 billion pounds every year, or about 4 pounds per person. Once a luxury reserved for special occasions, it became cheap enough for stir-fries and scampis when Asian farmers started growing it in ponds three decades ago. Thailand quickly dominated the market and now sends nearly half of its supply to the U.S.
The Southeast Asian country is one of the worst human trafficking hubs on earth. It has been blacklisted for the past two years by the U.S. State Department, which cited complicity by Thai officials. The European Union issued a warning earlier this year that tripled seafood import tariffs, and is expected to decide next month whether to impose an outright ban.
Consumers enjoy the convenience of dumping shrimp straight from freezer to skillet, the result of labor-intensive peeling and cleaning. Unable to keep up with demand, exporters get their supply from peeling sheds that are sometimes nothing more than crude garages adjacent to the boss's house. Supply chains are so complicated that, on any given day, buyers may not know exactly where the shrimp comes from.
The Thai Frozen Foods Association lists about 50 registered shrimp sheds in the country. However, hundreds more operate in Samut Sakhon, the country's main shrimp processing region. Here the humid air hangs thick with the smell of dead fish. Refrigerated trucks with seafood logos barrel down streets straddled by huge processing plants. Just as ubiquitous are the small pickups loaded with migrant workers from neighboring Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar being taken to gut, fillet, de-vein and peel the seafood that fuels this town's economy.
Abuse is common in Samut Sakhon. An International Labor Organization report estimated 10,000 migrant children aged 13 to 15 work in the city. Another U.N. agency study found nearly 60 percent of Burmese laborers toiling in its seafood processing industry were victims of forced labor.
Tin Nyo Win and his wife were taken to the Gig Peeling Factory in July when they made the long drive from Myanmar across the border, crammed so tightly into a truck with other workers that they could barely breathe. Like many migrants, they were lured from home by a broker with promises of good-paying jobs, and came without visas or work permits.
After being sold to the Gig shed, the couple learned they would have to work off what was considered their combined worth — $830. It was an insurmountable debt.
Because they were illegal workers, the owners constantly threatened to call police to keep them in line. Even documented migrants were vulnerable because the boss held onto identification papers so they could not leave.
Under the U.S. government's definition, forced labor and debt bondage are considered slavery.
In the Gig shed, employees' salaries were pegged to how fast their fingers could move. Tin Nyo Win and his wife peeled about 175 pounds of shrimp for just $4 a day, less than half of what they were promised. A female Thai manager, who slapped and cursed workers, often cut their wages without explanation. After they bought gloves and rubber boots, and paid monthly "cleaning fees" inside the trash-strewn shed, almost nothing was left.
Employees said they had to work even when they were ill. Seventeen children peeled alongside adults, sometimes crying, at stations where paint chipped off the walls and slick floors were eaten away by briny water.
Lunch breaks were only 15 minutes, and migrants were yelled at for talking too much. Several workers said a woman died recently because she didn't get proper medical care for her asthma. Children never went to school and began peeling shrimp just an hour later than adults.
"We had to get up at 3 in the morning and then start working continuously," said Eae Hpaw, 16, whose arms were a patchwork of scars from infections and allergies caused by the shrimp. "We stopped working around 7 in the evening. We would take a shower and sleep. Then we would start again."
After being roughed up one night by a supervisor, five months into their captivity, Tin Nyo Win and his wife decided they couldn't take the threats anymore.
"They would say, 'There's a gun in the boss's car and we're going to come and shoot you, and no one will know,'" he said.
The next morning, the couple saw an opportunity when the door wasn't being watched.
They ran.
Less than 24 hours later, Tin Nyo Win's wife was captured at a market by the shed manager. He watched helplessly as she was dragged away by her hair, terrified for her — and the baby they recently learned she was carrying.
____
Tracking shipments from just the Gig Peeling Factory highlights how fast and far slave-peeled shrimp can travel.
The AP followed trucks from the shed over five days to major Thai exporters. One load pulled into N&N Foods, owned by one of the world's largest seafood companies, Tokyo-based Maruha Nichiro Foods. A second drove to Okeanos Food, a subsidiary of another leading global seafood supplier, Thai Union. Still more went to Kongphop Frozen Foods and The Siam Union Frozen Foods, which have customers in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia and Australia. All the exporters and parent companies that responded said they abhor human rights abuses.
Shrimp can mix with different batches of seafood as it is packaged, branded and shipped. At that point, there's no way to tell where any individual piece was peeled. Once it reaches American restaurants, hospitals, universities and military chow halls, all the shrimp from those four Thai processors is considered associated with slavery, according to United Nations and U.S. standards.
U.S. customs records linked the exported shrimp to more than 40 U.S. brands, including popular names such as Sea Best, Waterfront Bistro and Aqua Star. The AP found shrimp products with the same labels in more than 150 stores across America — from Honolulu to New York City to a tiny West Virginia town of 179 people. The grocery store chains have tens of thousands of U.S. outlets where millions of Americans shop.
In addition, the Thai distributors state on their websites that they export to Europe and Asia, although specific records are confidential. AP reporters in Germany, Italy, England and Ireland researched shrimp in supermarkets and found several brands sourced from Thailand. Those stores said the names of their Thai distributors are proprietary. Royal Greenland — an importer whose shrimp was seen under store brands as a product from Thailand but has not been linked to the sheds — said it now has shifted its sourcing to Ecuador.
By all accounts, the work at the Gig shed was off the books — and thus even businesses carefully tracking the provenance of the shrimp called the AP's findings a surprise.
"I want to eliminate this," said Dirk Leuenberger, CEO of Aqua Star. "I think it's disgusting that it's even remotely part of my business."
Some, including Red Lobster, Whole Foods and H-E-B Supermarkets, said they were confident — based on assurances from their Thai supplier — that their particular shrimp was not associated with abusive factories. That Thai supplier admits it hadn't known where it was getting all its shrimp and sent a note outlining corrective measures to U.S. businesses demanding answers last week.
"I am deeply disappointed that despite our best efforts we have discovered this potential instance of illegal labor practice in our supply chain," Thai Union CEO Thiraphong Chansiri wrote. His statement acknowledged "that illicitly sourced product may have fraudulently entered its supply chain" and confirmed a supplier "was doing business with an unregistered pre-processor in violation of our code of conduct."
After AP brought its findings to dozens of global retailers, Thai Union announced it will bring all shrimp-processing in-house by the end of the year and provide jobs to workers whose factories close as a result. It's a significant step from the industry leader whose international brands include John West in Britain, Petit Navire in France and Mareblu in Italy; shrimp from abusive factories in Thailand has not been associated with them.
Susan Coppedge, the U.S. State Department's new anti-trafficking ambassador, said problems persist because brokers, boat captains and seafood firms aren't held accountable and victims have no recourse.
"We have told Thailand to improve their anti-trafficking efforts, to increase their prosecutions, to provide services to victims," she said. She added that American consumers "can speak through their wallets and tell companies: 'We don't want to buy things made with slavery.'"
The State Department has not slapped Thailand with sanctions applied to other countries with similarly weak human trafficking records because it is a strategically critical Southeast Asian ally. And federal authorities say they can't enforce U.S. laws that ban importing goods produced by forced labor, citing an exception for items consumers can't get from another source. Thai shrimp slips right through that loophole.
Thailand is not the only source of slave-tainted seafood in the U.S., where nearly 90 percent of shrimp is imported.
The State Department's annual anti-trafficking reports have tied such seafood to 55 countries on six continents, including major suppliers to the U.S. Earlier this year, the AP uncovered a slave island in Benjina, Indonesia, where hundreds of migrant fishermen were trafficked from Thailand and sometimes locked in a cage. Last month, food giant Nestle disclosed that its own Thai suppliers were abusing and enslaving workers and has vowed to force change.
Human trafficking in Thailand also stretches far beyond the seafood industry. Earlier this year, high-ranking officials were implicated in a smuggling syndicate involving tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar. A crackdown came after dozens of victims died in Thai jungle camps because they were unable to pay ransoms.
The junta military government has singled out the country's fisheries sector for reforms. It says it has passed new laws to crack down on illegal activities aboard fishing boats and inside seafood-processing factories and is working to register undocumented migrant workers.
"There have been some flaws in the laws, and we have been closing those gaps," said M.L. Puntarik Smiti, the Thai Labor Ministry's permanent secretary. "The government has made human trafficking a national agenda. The policy is clear, and every department is working in the same direction. ... In the past, most punishments focused on the laborers, but now more focus is put on punishing the employers."
Police point to a new law that goes after officers involved in human trafficking, and say rooting out corruption and complicity is a priority.
Critics argue, however, the changes have been largely cosmetic. Former slaves repeatedly described how police took them into custody and then sold them to agents who trafficked them again into the seafood industry.
"There are laws and regulations, but they are being selectively enforced to benefit one side," said Patima Tungpuchayakul, manager of the Thai-based nonprofit Labor Rights Promotion Network Foundation. "When you find there is a child working 16 hours a day and getting paid ($2.75) ... the government has to put a stop to this."
The peeling sheds that supply to major Thai seafood companies are supposed to be certified and inspected, but the stamp of approval does not always prevent abuses.
A factory just a few miles away from Tin Nyo Win's shed provided shrimp to companies including Thai Union; a half-dozen former workers said a Thai Union employee visited the shed every day. A runaway worker alerted a local migrant labor group about slave-like conditions there after being brutally beaten across his ear and throat with iron chains. Police raided the factory in May.
Former employees told the AP they had been locked inside and forced to work long hours with no days off and little sleep.
The conditions they described inside were horrific: A woman eight months pregnant miscarried on the shed floor and was forced to keep peeling for four days while hemorrhaging. An unconscious toddler was refused medical care after falling about 12 feet onto a concrete floor. Another pregnant woman escaped only to be tracked down, yanked into a car by her hair and handcuffed to a fellow worker at the factory.
"Sometimes when we were working, the tears would run down our cheeks because it was so tiring we couldn't bear it," said the worker who ran away. His name is being withheld due to concerns about his safety.
"We were crying, but we kept peeling shrimp," he said. "We couldn't rest. ... I think people are guilty if they eat the shrimp that we peeled like slaves."
Shrimp from that factory entered the supply chains of Thai Union, which, in the six months prior to the bust, shipped 15 million pounds of frozen shrimp to dozens of U.S. companies, customs records show. Those included Red Lobster and Darden Restaurants, which owns outlets such as Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse and several other popular American chains.
The runaway worker was a free man after the May raid. But five months later, running low on cash with a pregnant wife, he felt desperate enough to look for a job in another shrimp factory. He hoped conditions would be better this time.
They weren't. His wages were withheld, and he ended up in the Gig factory peeling shrimp next to Tin Nyo Win — No. 31.
____
Modern-day slavery is often just part of doing business in Thailand's seafood export capital. Some shed owners believe they are providing jobs to poor migrant workers in need. Police are paid to look the other way and say officers frequently do not understand that practices such as forced labor and debt bondage are against the law.
"We just need to educate everyone on this issue," said Jaruwat Vaisaya, deputy commissioner of Bangkok's Metropolitan Police. "I don't think they know what they're doing is called human trafficking, but they must know it's wrong."
News surfaces about an abusive shed only when workers become so hopeless they're willing to risk everything to escape. Once on the street, without documentation, they are in some ways even more vulnerable. They face possible arrest and deportation or being resold.
After fleeing the Gig shed, Tin Nyo Win was alone. He didn't even know where the shed manager had taken his wife. He sought help from a local labor rights group, which prompted police to take action.
At dawn on Nov. 9, nearly two weeks after running away, he returned to the shed wearing dark glasses, a hat and a mask to keep the owners from recognizing him. He burst through the gate with dozens of officers and military troops, and frantically searched for his wife in the dim quarters on both floors of the maze-like complex.
Frightened Burmese workers huddled on the dirty concrete floor, the men and women separated. Some could be heard whispering: "That's 31. He came back." One young mother breast-fed a 5-month-old baby, while 17 children were taken to a corner.
Tin Nyo Win's wife was nowhere.
With law enforcement leading the way, it didn't take long to find her, though: Mi San was at a nearby fish factory. After being caught by the shed manager, she was taken to police. But instead of treating her as a trafficking victim, she said they put her back to work. Even as police and her husband escorted her out of the second factory, the Thai owner followed them into the street, complaining that Mi San still owed $22 for the pork and chicken she ate.
For Thai police, it looked like a victory in front of the cameras. But the story does not end there.
No one at the Gig shed was arrested for human trafficking, a law that's seldom enforced. Instead, migrants with papers, including seven children, were sent back there to work. Another 10 undocumented children were taken from their parents and put into a shelter, forced to choose between staying there for years or being deported back to Myanmar alone. Nineteen other illegal workers were detained.
Tin Nyo Win and his wife soon found out that not even whistleblowers are protected. Just four days after being reunited, the couple was fingerprinted and locked inside a Thai jail cell without even a mattress. They were held on nearly $4,000 bail and charged with entering the country illegally and working without permits.
Back at the shed where their nightmare began, a worker reached by phone pleaded for help as trucks loaded with slave-peeled shrimp continued to roll out.
____
Epilogue:
The Gig Peeling Factory is now closed, with workers moved to another shed linked to the same owners, said Chaiyuth Thomya, the superintendent of Samut Sakhon's main police station. A Gig owner reached by phone by the AP declined to comment.
Jaruwat, the Bangkok police official, was alerted to how the case was being handled and has ordered local authorities to re-investigate it for human trafficking, and arrests have since been made. Tin Nyo Win and his pregnant wife were released from jail 10 days after they were locked up and are now being housed in a government shelter for victims of human trafficking.
Chaiyuth called a meeting to explain human trafficking laws to nearly 60 shed owners, some of whom were confused about raids that swept up illegal migrants. Later, Chaiyuth quoted one shed owner as saying, "I'm not selling drugs, why did they take possession of my things?"
Meanwhile, the AP informed labor rights investigators who work closely with police about another shed where workers said they were being held against their will. It is being examined.
____
Associated Press video journalist Tassanee Vejpongsa in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, contributed to this report
Other stories in this series include:
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/98053222a73e4b5dab9fb81a116d5854/ap-inves...
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d8afe2a8447d4610b3293c119415bd4a/myanmar-...
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/c2fe8406ff7145a8b484deae3f748aa5/ap-track...
____
Mendoza reported from Washington. Follow us on Twitter: @MargieMason, @estherhtusan11, @mendozamartha, @robinmcdowell
EDITOR'S NOTE: More than 2,000 trapped fishermen have been freed this year as a result of an ongoing Associated Press investigative series into slavery in the Thai seafood industry. The reports also have led to a dozen arrests, millions of dollars' worth of seizures and proposals for new federal laws.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8f64fb25931242a985bc30e3f5a9a0b2/ap-global-supermarkets-selling-shrimp-peeled-slaves
Wal-Mart, Red Lobster, Whole Foods and other retailers sell slave-peeled shrimp – report
RT
Systemic human trafficking in Thailand is the engine that helps
supply cheap shrimp to the US, Europe, and Asia, the AP reports. Forced
laborers, including children, work 16 hours a day under threat of
violence, deportation, or imprisonment.
Lax enforcement and low
awareness of forced-labor laws in Thailand allow powerless workers, most
of whom are undocumented migrants at the mercy of their handlers and
bosses, to fuel the country's $7 billion seafood export industry, the
Associated Press reported.
Shady exporters and subsidiary suppliers have been taking advantage of
the situation, as parent companies that operate with a global reach
claim ignorance of abuses they call abhorrent.
US custom records have linked slave-intensive shrimp production originating from the Gig Peeling Factory in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, to Thai exporters and subsidiaries associated with some of the world’s largest seafood companies, including Japan’s Maruha Nichiro Foods, as well as Thai Union, Kongphop Frozen Foods, and The Siam Union Frozen Foods.
This
shrimp – processed by migrants including small children forced to work
16 hours for little if any pay under threat of jail, violence, or
deportation – is eventually distributed by the top companies to
locations across the world, winding up as part of seafood packaged under
the label of 40 US brands, including Sea Best, Aqua Star, Chicken of
the Sea, and pet food Fancy Feast. In the US, where 90 percent of shrimp
is imported, millions of people dine on shrimp produced with forced
labor every day.
Thai Union, for example, ships to dozens of US companies, custom records indicate, including chain restaurants Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and The Capital Grille. US retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Dollar General, and Petco are also linked to slave shrimp from Thailand, AP reported. The companies are profiting off slave labor, as defined by the US government.
"I am deeply disappointed that despite our best efforts we have discovered this potential instance of illegal labor practice in our supply chain," Thai Union CEO Thiraphong Chansiri told AP. He went on to acknowledge "that illicitly sourced product may have fraudulently entered its supply chain," while confirming a supplier "was doing business with an unregistered pre-processor in violation of our code of conduct."
The companies that ended up being the face of slave-produced shrimp say they were not aware of the working conditions involved in their shrimp processing chain, and that they abhor the forced-labor practices uncovered by Associated Press. Some claim to have taken steps to remedy their tainted supply chains.
"I want to eliminate this," Dirk Leuenberger, CEO of Aqua Star, told AP. "I think it's disgusting that it's even remotely part of my business."
AP’s
report focused on Samut Sakhon, a port town about an hour from Bangkok.
There are about 10,000 migrant children, ages 13 to 15, working in
Samut Sakhon, according to the International Labor Organization. A UN
study found nearly 60 percent of Burmese laborers in the city’s seafood
processing industry are trapped, forced to work under dire conditions,
and faced with insurmountable debt.
There are few if any avenues of official recourse for forced workers, especially undocumented laborers, who face harsh repercussions should they cross their bosses. Police and inspectors working with major companies are rarely a source of relief for such laborers. Even documented workers are vulnerable, for instance if they do not have possession of their identification documents.
One worker who escaped a shrimp-production facility not far from the Gig Peeling Factory in Samut Sakhon told AP just how miserable daily conditions for workers: a pregnant woman who miscarried on the factory floor was forced to continue working for four days while hemorrhaging; an unconscious toddler who fell 12 feet onto a concrete floor was refused medical care; a pregnant woman who tried to escape was pulled into a car by her hair and later handcuffed to another worker.
"Sometimes when we were working, the tears would run down our cheeks because it was so tiring we couldn't bear it," said the worker, who did not offer his name.
"We were crying, but we kept peeling shrimp," he said. "We couldn't rest. ... I think people are guilty if they eat the shrimp that we peeled like slaves."
AP’s report is the latest in its series of investigations into global seafood production linked to forced labor. The news organization said that more than 2,000 trapped fisherman have been freed thanks to its reporting, in addition “to a dozen arrests, millions of dollars’ worth of seizures and proposals for new federal laws.”
Thailand is a nation with interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a so-called free trade deal between a dozen Pacific Rim nations that many believe will weaken labor rights while exacerbating human trafficking.
https://www.rt.com/usa/325914-slave-shrimp-thailand-seafood/
US custom records have linked slave-intensive shrimp production originating from the Gig Peeling Factory in Samut Sakhon, Thailand, to Thai exporters and subsidiaries associated with some of the world’s largest seafood companies, including Japan’s Maruha Nichiro Foods, as well as Thai Union, Kongphop Frozen Foods, and The Siam Union Frozen Foods.
More great investigative reporting by AP into slavery in SE Asia's fishing industries. This time shrimp in Thailand https://t.co/WCwM8uTQzV
— Adam Dean (@adamjdean) December 14, 2015
Read more
Thai Union, for example, ships to dozens of US companies, custom records indicate, including chain restaurants Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, and The Capital Grille. US retailers such as Wal-Mart, Kroger, Whole Foods, Dollar General, and Petco are also linked to slave shrimp from Thailand, AP reported. The companies are profiting off slave labor, as defined by the US government.
"I am deeply disappointed that despite our best efforts we have discovered this potential instance of illegal labor practice in our supply chain," Thai Union CEO Thiraphong Chansiri told AP. He went on to acknowledge "that illicitly sourced product may have fraudulently entered its supply chain," while confirming a supplier "was doing business with an unregistered pre-processor in violation of our code of conduct."
The companies that ended up being the face of slave-produced shrimp say they were not aware of the working conditions involved in their shrimp processing chain, and that they abhor the forced-labor practices uncovered by Associated Press. Some claim to have taken steps to remedy their tainted supply chains.
"I want to eliminate this," Dirk Leuenberger, CEO of Aqua Star, told AP. "I think it's disgusting that it's even remotely part of my business."
Walmart, Costco tied to slave labor in shrimp industry http://t.co/ia5W5MlK5f
— RT America (@RT_America) June 11, 2014
There are few if any avenues of official recourse for forced workers, especially undocumented laborers, who face harsh repercussions should they cross their bosses. Police and inspectors working with major companies are rarely a source of relief for such laborers. Even documented workers are vulnerable, for instance if they do not have possession of their identification documents.
One worker who escaped a shrimp-production facility not far from the Gig Peeling Factory in Samut Sakhon told AP just how miserable daily conditions for workers: a pregnant woman who miscarried on the factory floor was forced to continue working for four days while hemorrhaging; an unconscious toddler who fell 12 feet onto a concrete floor was refused medical care; a pregnant woman who tried to escape was pulled into a car by her hair and later handcuffed to another worker.
Read more
"Sometimes when we were working, the tears would run down our cheeks because it was so tiring we couldn't bear it," said the worker, who did not offer his name.
"We were crying, but we kept peeling shrimp," he said. "We couldn't rest. ... I think people are guilty if they eat the shrimp that we peeled like slaves."
AP’s report is the latest in its series of investigations into global seafood production linked to forced labor. The news organization said that more than 2,000 trapped fisherman have been freed thanks to its reporting, in addition “to a dozen arrests, millions of dollars’ worth of seizures and proposals for new federal laws.”
Thailand is a nation with interest in joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a so-called free trade deal between a dozen Pacific Rim nations that many believe will weaken labor rights while exacerbating human trafficking.
https://www.rt.com/usa/325914-slave-shrimp-thailand-seafood/
Middle East Saudi Arabia's Misunderstood Relationship With Extremism
Listen to the Story
Saudi Arabia has been blamed for exporting a kind of religious extremism that's allowed groups like ISIS to flourish the region. The US embassy in Saudi Arabia says that's not true.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer in Washington.
RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: And I'm Rachel Martin in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It's a country that, because of its vast oil reserves and political monarchy, has enjoyed a certain level of stability in a very turbulent part of the world. But in the past year, Saudi Arabia has found itself in new territory facing new threats. It's fighting a war in Yemen that's not going well. It's part of the U.S.-led coalition air campaign in Syria. And then there's the revelation that the San Bernardino attackers spent time here. I sat down with the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia. His name is Tim Lenderking. I asked him specifically how the Saudi regime reacted to the reports that 29-year-old Tashfeen Malik spent several years here.
TIM LENDERKING: As far as we know, there's nothing indicating that there was a radicalization element to the time in the kingdom. They also spent a lot of time in other places. And no country is as concerned about whether people get radicalized in the kingdom as Saudi Arabia.
MARTIN: Saudi Arabia gets a lot of blame for exporting a kind of religious extremism that breeds violence in the region. It's often cited that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden was from a Saudi family. And Saudi fighters continue to join the ranks of the Islamic State. But Tim Lenderking says any suggestion that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the creation of ISIS is wrong.
LENDERKING: It's sort of laughable because the Saudi's, again, are pretty much in lockstep with us, with our objectives, as the administration has defined them, to degrade and destroy ISIL. They've participated in airstrikes even when their military is also engaged in a war in Yemen.
MARTIN: But the textbooks that are used in Saudi schools are the same textbooks that ISIS uses in its madrassas.
LENDERKING: Well, the Saudi textbook's something that we've, you know, talked to the Saudi leadership quite extensively about. There have been improvements, but, you know, in terms of a commitment to the fight, I mean, Saudi Arabia wants Daesh destroyed just as much as we do. They do not want these people in the kingdom. They do not want them recruiting Saudi youth.
MARTIN: Do you think the threat feels more urgent to them right now than it has in the past?
LENDERKING: Well, I think so because Daesh is responsible directly for attacks inside the kingdom. So, as we say, they're inside the wire. And that's why you've seen the Saudi security services act so aggressively to - to round up people. They have found bomb-making factories inside the kingdom. They have found suicide vests and there's no question that they have interrupted attacks that would have taken place.
MARTIN: Lenderking says because Saudi Arabia feels invested in the fight against ISIS, or Daesh, the U.S. can push the kingdom to be more aggressive against the group in Syria.
LENDERKING: We're going to be asking the kingdom to do more in terms of the military piece of this. I expect that they will want to do that.
MARTIN: Air campaign or boots on the ground.
LENDERKING: Certainly, the air campaign, which, as I mentioned, they've already participated in. In my personal view, I think at the end of the day there has to be some sort of fighting force. And I think the onus is on the region to provide the bulk of that force.
MARTIN: My colleague Deb Amos has spent years covering Saudi Arabia and the region. So I wanted to know from her how likely this would be. I called her up. She's in Jeddah right now in the south of the country. Deb, the U.S. deputy ambassador in Riyadh says he wants Saudi Arabia and its neighbors to step up in Syria, which could mean ground forces. So how likely is that?
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: Well, let's talk about the region first. The UAE, the Emirates, actually said publicly that they are willing to contribute forces. The Saudis have said nothing publicly so far. Western sources here and Saudi sources say that the princes haven't talked to the generals yet. Now, we know that Saudi generals are laser focused on their war with Yemen on the southern border. And it hasn't been a good story on the ground there. So it'll be lessons learned from Yemen that will determine what the answer is in Syria.
MARTIN: So Saudi Arabia is calculating its moves carefully, trying to win a war in Yemen, trying to push Bashar al-Assad out of power in Syria, all the while rooting out the extremist networks that have buried themselves further into Saudi society.
WERTHEIMER: That's WEEKEND EDITION host Rachel Martin, who's been reporting in Saudi Arabia. And, Rachel, we heard the deputy ambassador say the Saudi regime has been more aggressive in rounding up terrorist suspects. Does that make the Saudis feel safer?
MARTIN: Not really because this more aggressive response to would-be terrorists has also meant a crackdown on anyone who seems to be speaking out in a way that threatens the regime. And that means especially targeting human rights activists, like a woman I met named Hala Aldosari. For the last year, she's been in the U.S., actually, where she's been doing a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. And I sat down with her before this trip to Saudi Arabia to talk about the challenges that she sees back home.
HALA ALDOSARI: Very early on you realize that as a woman in Saudi growing up there are certain things that you can't pursue - sport, independence, being in the public.
MARTIN: Aldosari writes critically about women's issues for Saudi websites and international media. And as a result, she's been stigmatized at home as someone who wants to import Western values into Saudi culture. She's supposed to go back to Saudi Arabia at the end of her fellowship, but she told me that she's afraid.
ALDOSARI: I listen to other activists being summoned for interrogation and being threatened and being warned and being silenced and I don't want to end up like that. So I do feel intimidated. I do feel threatened.
MARTIN: She misses her family, her nieces and nephews especially, but she thinks she can affect more social change in Saudi Arabia from the outside. So she doesn't know when she'll go back.
ALDOSARI: I don't think of it as a price or a cost. I think it's whether you want to live aligned with what you believe in. I believe it's a duty that everyone should do their part. And I don't think I've paid the price of men and women who have been imprisoned and still imprisoned for years, for 10 years or so, for stating their opinions. And I'm safe. I'm able to voice my concerns. I live in autonomy. I'm protected.
MARTIN: So, Linda, this is still one of America's most crucial allies in the region. Yet, you just heard one of its citizens doesn't feel safe enough to go back.
WERTHEIMER: Rachel, there's certainly been a lot of criticism of Saudi Arabia from human rights groups over the treatment of some prisoners being held there.
MARTIN: That's right. A Saudi blogger named Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. A couple of months ago, a Palestinian artist living here in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to death for apostasy. And there are also reports that the regime will execute at least 50 people convicted on terrorism charges. The country has already carried out 150 executions this year.
WERTHEIMER: WEEKEND EDITION host Rachel Martin, she's been in Saudi Arabia all this past week reporting on changes in that country. Rachel, thank you.
MARTIN: You're welcome, Linda.
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer in Washington.
RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: And I'm Rachel Martin in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It's a country that, because of its vast oil reserves and political monarchy, has enjoyed a certain level of stability in a very turbulent part of the world. But in the past year, Saudi Arabia has found itself in new territory facing new threats. It's fighting a war in Yemen that's not going well. It's part of the U.S.-led coalition air campaign in Syria. And then there's the revelation that the San Bernardino attackers spent time here. I sat down with the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia. His name is Tim Lenderking. I asked him specifically how the Saudi regime reacted to the reports that 29-year-old Tashfeen Malik spent several years here.
TIM LENDERKING: As far as we know, there's nothing indicating that there was a radicalization element to the time in the kingdom. They also spent a lot of time in other places. And no country is as concerned about whether people get radicalized in the kingdom as Saudi Arabia.
MARTIN: Saudi Arabia gets a lot of blame for exporting a kind of religious extremism that breeds violence in the region. It's often cited that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden was from a Saudi family. And Saudi fighters continue to join the ranks of the Islamic State. But Tim Lenderking says any suggestion that Saudi Arabia is responsible for the creation of ISIS is wrong.
LENDERKING: It's sort of laughable because the Saudi's, again, are pretty much in lockstep with us, with our objectives, as the administration has defined them, to degrade and destroy ISIL. They've participated in airstrikes even when their military is also engaged in a war in Yemen.
MARTIN: But the textbooks that are used in Saudi schools are the same textbooks that ISIS uses in its madrassas.
LENDERKING: Well, the Saudi textbook's something that we've, you know, talked to the Saudi leadership quite extensively about. There have been improvements, but, you know, in terms of a commitment to the fight, I mean, Saudi Arabia wants Daesh destroyed just as much as we do. They do not want these people in the kingdom. They do not want them recruiting Saudi youth.
MARTIN: Do you think the threat feels more urgent to them right now than it has in the past?
LENDERKING: Well, I think so because Daesh is responsible directly for attacks inside the kingdom. So, as we say, they're inside the wire. And that's why you've seen the Saudi security services act so aggressively to - to round up people. They have found bomb-making factories inside the kingdom. They have found suicide vests and there's no question that they have interrupted attacks that would have taken place.
MARTIN: Lenderking says because Saudi Arabia feels invested in the fight against ISIS, or Daesh, the U.S. can push the kingdom to be more aggressive against the group in Syria.
LENDERKING: We're going to be asking the kingdom to do more in terms of the military piece of this. I expect that they will want to do that.
MARTIN: Air campaign or boots on the ground.
LENDERKING: Certainly, the air campaign, which, as I mentioned, they've already participated in. In my personal view, I think at the end of the day there has to be some sort of fighting force. And I think the onus is on the region to provide the bulk of that force.
MARTIN: My colleague Deb Amos has spent years covering Saudi Arabia and the region. So I wanted to know from her how likely this would be. I called her up. She's in Jeddah right now in the south of the country. Deb, the U.S. deputy ambassador in Riyadh says he wants Saudi Arabia and its neighbors to step up in Syria, which could mean ground forces. So how likely is that?
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: Well, let's talk about the region first. The UAE, the Emirates, actually said publicly that they are willing to contribute forces. The Saudis have said nothing publicly so far. Western sources here and Saudi sources say that the princes haven't talked to the generals yet. Now, we know that Saudi generals are laser focused on their war with Yemen on the southern border. And it hasn't been a good story on the ground there. So it'll be lessons learned from Yemen that will determine what the answer is in Syria.
MARTIN: So Saudi Arabia is calculating its moves carefully, trying to win a war in Yemen, trying to push Bashar al-Assad out of power in Syria, all the while rooting out the extremist networks that have buried themselves further into Saudi society.
WERTHEIMER: That's WEEKEND EDITION host Rachel Martin, who's been reporting in Saudi Arabia. And, Rachel, we heard the deputy ambassador say the Saudi regime has been more aggressive in rounding up terrorist suspects. Does that make the Saudis feel safer?
MARTIN: Not really because this more aggressive response to would-be terrorists has also meant a crackdown on anyone who seems to be speaking out in a way that threatens the regime. And that means especially targeting human rights activists, like a woman I met named Hala Aldosari. For the last year, she's been in the U.S., actually, where she's been doing a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. And I sat down with her before this trip to Saudi Arabia to talk about the challenges that she sees back home.
HALA ALDOSARI: Very early on you realize that as a woman in Saudi growing up there are certain things that you can't pursue - sport, independence, being in the public.
MARTIN: Aldosari writes critically about women's issues for Saudi websites and international media. And as a result, she's been stigmatized at home as someone who wants to import Western values into Saudi culture. She's supposed to go back to Saudi Arabia at the end of her fellowship, but she told me that she's afraid.
ALDOSARI: I listen to other activists being summoned for interrogation and being threatened and being warned and being silenced and I don't want to end up like that. So I do feel intimidated. I do feel threatened.
MARTIN: She misses her family, her nieces and nephews especially, but she thinks she can affect more social change in Saudi Arabia from the outside. So she doesn't know when she'll go back.
ALDOSARI: I don't think of it as a price or a cost. I think it's whether you want to live aligned with what you believe in. I believe it's a duty that everyone should do their part. And I don't think I've paid the price of men and women who have been imprisoned and still imprisoned for years, for 10 years or so, for stating their opinions. And I'm safe. I'm able to voice my concerns. I live in autonomy. I'm protected.
MARTIN: So, Linda, this is still one of America's most crucial allies in the region. Yet, you just heard one of its citizens doesn't feel safe enough to go back.
WERTHEIMER: Rachel, there's certainly been a lot of criticism of Saudi Arabia from human rights groups over the treatment of some prisoners being held there.
MARTIN: That's right. A Saudi blogger named Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam. A couple of months ago, a Palestinian artist living here in Saudi Arabia was sentenced to death for apostasy. And there are also reports that the regime will execute at least 50 people convicted on terrorism charges. The country has already carried out 150 executions this year.
WERTHEIMER: WEEKEND EDITION host Rachel Martin, she's been in Saudi Arabia all this past week reporting on changes in that country. Rachel, thank you.
MARTIN: You're welcome, Linda.
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AP Exclusive: Most sex offender parolees exempt from ban
Washington Post
In this photo taken Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, parole agents Andrew Correa, left, and Clint Cooley, right, talk with a sex-offender parolee they located by tracking the global positioning device he wears, in Sacramento, Calif. Parole agents use a global positioning devices to locate parolees to make unannounced stops. State corrections officials recently completed a review how many sex offenders must comply with voter-approved residency restrictions based on a state supreme court decision. The corrections department announced a dramatic reduction in the number of offenders barred from living near schools and parks. (Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press)
SACRAMENTO,
Calif. — Three-quarters of California’s paroled sex offenders
previously banned from living near parks, schools and other places where
children congregate now face no housing restrictions after the state
changed its policy in response to a court ruling that said the
prohibition only applies to child molesters, according to data compiled
at the request of The Associated Press.
The rate is far higher than officials initially predicted. The state expected half of the 5,900 parolees would have restrictions on where they can live or sleep lifted when the corrections department changed its policy following the March ruling. Instead, data shows that 76 percent of offenders no longer are subject to the voter-approved restrictions.
Corrections officials said last spring that about half of the convicted sex offenders are considered child molesters who would still be subject to the housing ban.
But even some whose offense involved a child no longer face the 2,000-foot residency restriction, officials disclosed in explaining the higher number. That’s because the department’s new policy requires a direct connection between where a parolee lives and the offender’s crime or potential to reoffend. Only rarely is the assailant a stranger to the victim, the type of offender whose behavior might be affected by where he lives.
“A parole agent cannot simply prevent a parolee from living near a school or park because the offender committed a crime against a child,” Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Jeffrey Callison said in a statement.
The decision largely reverses a blanket housing ban imposed by California voters nine years ago. Many states impose a variety of residency restrictions on sex offenders, though states including Iowa, Georgia and Oklahoma rescinded or changed their residency restrictions and some now also tailor restrictions to individual sex offenders.
As a result of California’s policy change, more than 4,200 of the state’s 5,900 offenders no longer qualify for the residency restrictions, according to data compiled by the corrections department at the AP’s request. However, their whereabouts still are monitored with tracking devices and they must still tell local law enforcement agencies where they live.
One in five sex offenders who used to be transient have been able to find permanent housing because they are no longer subject to the rule, the department said.
“These numbers are absolutely astounding,” said state Sen. Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, who co-authored the original ballot initiative. “Kids in kindergarten living across the street from a sex offender is not what the people voted for in Jessica’s Law. Seventy percent of the people voted to keep them away from schools and parks.”
The department spent months reviewing offenders’ criminal backgrounds before deciding that the ban should continue to apply to about 1,400 offenders. The department couldn’t provide the status of nearly 300 other offenders.
“That’s a pretty dramatic reduction in numbers, so that’s scary. That’s scary for victims,” said Nina Salarno, executive director of Crime Victims United of California.
She and Criminal Justice Legal Foundation president Michael Rushford, who represents crime victims, said the department is broadly interpreting the March court ruling, which applied only to San Diego County. Officials have refused to release the legal advice from the state attorney general that they are relying upon in making the decision.
In the March ruling, justices found that blanket restrictions violate offenders’ constitutional rights by making it difficult for them to find housing and other services, without advancing the state’s goal of protecting children. One of the San Diego County offenders sued after he was forced to live in a dry riverbed, while two others slept in an alley near the parole office.
Susan Fisher, a board member of the victims support group Citizens against Homicide, said she would have been surprised at the low number of parolees still facing residency restrictions had she not spent so much time as a parole commissioner and as victims’ rights adviser to former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Most people think “that around every corner is a child molester,” she said. Yet experts say most child molesters are family members or acquaintances of the victim.
Ending the blanket housing restriction tracks recommendations that have been made for years by the Sex Offender Management Board, an advisory panel made up of law enforcement and treatment professionals.
Board vice chairman Tom Tobin said California parole officers who are responsible for enforcing the prohibition are doing a much better job now of tracking sex offenders based on their individual risk.
Tobin, a psychologist who also is on the board of the California Coalition on Sexual Offending, said agents can still apply the housing ban where it makes sense, and the department said it still prohibits many offenders from having contact with minors or loitering near parks, schools or other places where children gather.
Tobin and Fisher said the public is safer with about 260 fewer transient sex offenders who now have been able to find housing since the rule changed.
“If somebody’s living under a bridge or going from one house to the next ... we’re putting ourselves at greater risk,” Fisher said.
Runner disagreed. She intends to try again next year to pass stalled legislation that would let judges in each county decide if the 2,000-foot limit is too restrictive in their jurisdiction.
“Unfortunately, that many people coming from transient to living near schools is not good,” Runner said.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
In this photo taken Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2015, parole agents Andrew Correa, left, and Clint Cooley, right, talk with a sex-offender parolee they located by tracking the global positioning device he wears, in Sacramento, Calif. Parole agents use a global positioning devices to locate parolees to make unannounced stops. State corrections officials recently completed a review how many sex offenders must comply with voter-approved residency restrictions based on a state supreme court decision. The corrections department announced a dramatic reduction in the number of offenders barred from living near schools and parks. (Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press)
The rate is far higher than officials initially predicted. The state expected half of the 5,900 parolees would have restrictions on where they can live or sleep lifted when the corrections department changed its policy following the March ruling. Instead, data shows that 76 percent of offenders no longer are subject to the voter-approved restrictions.
Corrections officials said last spring that about half of the convicted sex offenders are considered child molesters who would still be subject to the housing ban.
But even some whose offense involved a child no longer face the 2,000-foot residency restriction, officials disclosed in explaining the higher number. That’s because the department’s new policy requires a direct connection between where a parolee lives and the offender’s crime or potential to reoffend. Only rarely is the assailant a stranger to the victim, the type of offender whose behavior might be affected by where he lives.
“A parole agent cannot simply prevent a parolee from living near a school or park because the offender committed a crime against a child,” Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesman Jeffrey Callison said in a statement.
The decision largely reverses a blanket housing ban imposed by California voters nine years ago. Many states impose a variety of residency restrictions on sex offenders, though states including Iowa, Georgia and Oklahoma rescinded or changed their residency restrictions and some now also tailor restrictions to individual sex offenders.
As a result of California’s policy change, more than 4,200 of the state’s 5,900 offenders no longer qualify for the residency restrictions, according to data compiled by the corrections department at the AP’s request. However, their whereabouts still are monitored with tracking devices and they must still tell local law enforcement agencies where they live.
One in five sex offenders who used to be transient have been able to find permanent housing because they are no longer subject to the rule, the department said.
“These numbers are absolutely astounding,” said state Sen. Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, who co-authored the original ballot initiative. “Kids in kindergarten living across the street from a sex offender is not what the people voted for in Jessica’s Law. Seventy percent of the people voted to keep them away from schools and parks.”
The department spent months reviewing offenders’ criminal backgrounds before deciding that the ban should continue to apply to about 1,400 offenders. The department couldn’t provide the status of nearly 300 other offenders.
“That’s a pretty dramatic reduction in numbers, so that’s scary. That’s scary for victims,” said Nina Salarno, executive director of Crime Victims United of California.
She and Criminal Justice Legal Foundation president Michael Rushford, who represents crime victims, said the department is broadly interpreting the March court ruling, which applied only to San Diego County. Officials have refused to release the legal advice from the state attorney general that they are relying upon in making the decision.
In the March ruling, justices found that blanket restrictions violate offenders’ constitutional rights by making it difficult for them to find housing and other services, without advancing the state’s goal of protecting children. One of the San Diego County offenders sued after he was forced to live in a dry riverbed, while two others slept in an alley near the parole office.
Susan Fisher, a board member of the victims support group Citizens against Homicide, said she would have been surprised at the low number of parolees still facing residency restrictions had she not spent so much time as a parole commissioner and as victims’ rights adviser to former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Most people think “that around every corner is a child molester,” she said. Yet experts say most child molesters are family members or acquaintances of the victim.
Ending the blanket housing restriction tracks recommendations that have been made for years by the Sex Offender Management Board, an advisory panel made up of law enforcement and treatment professionals.
Board vice chairman Tom Tobin said California parole officers who are responsible for enforcing the prohibition are doing a much better job now of tracking sex offenders based on their individual risk.
Tobin, a psychologist who also is on the board of the California Coalition on Sexual Offending, said agents can still apply the housing ban where it makes sense, and the department said it still prohibits many offenders from having contact with minors or loitering near parks, schools or other places where children gather.
Tobin and Fisher said the public is safer with about 260 fewer transient sex offenders who now have been able to find housing since the rule changed.
“If somebody’s living under a bridge or going from one house to the next ... we’re putting ourselves at greater risk,” Fisher said.
Runner disagreed. She intends to try again next year to pass stalled legislation that would let judges in each county decide if the 2,000-foot limit is too restrictive in their jurisdiction.
“Unfortunately, that many people coming from transient to living near schools is not good,” Runner said.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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