Don't join any of these group ISIS, Al Qaida, Al Shabab and Boko haram these are human traffickers

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Former Norwegian priest spends embezzled money on prostitutes

presstv
Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:53PM
Are Blomhoff
Are Blomhoff
A former Norwegian priest has confessed to spending 15 million kroner (1.9 million dollars), which he embezzled from a welfare organization, on parties and prostitutes in Spain.
"It was totally out of control, the size of the sum shows that," DPA quoted Are Blomhoff as telling the district court in the eastern Norwegian city of Drammen on Tuesday.
Blomhoff told a judge that all the money he embezzled during the seven-year-period had been spent.
The former priest, at the time head of the Stiftelsen Betanien foundation, used a fake account linked to a nursing home foundation in Spain to siphon off the money.
"This is the toughest day of my life -- to admit to something that was so removed from myself, yet part of me," Blomhoff told the court.
Stiftelsen Betanien, which has around 500 employees, runs a nursing school, a daycare center and a hospital in Bergen, western Norway. 
During the court session, Blomhoff also admitted to having a drinking problem and took full blame for his crimes.
"It was almost like an illness, an addiction,” said Blomhoff.
Current Stiftelsen Betanien chairman Christian Hysing-Dahl told state run-media the embezzlement was on its own unacceptable, but “When we see what the money was used for, it just gets even worse.” 
“I think it’s good, though, that the case will come to a close, both for him and us,” Hysing-Dahl said. “Now he’ll get his sentence and can start serving it.”
SRK/MHB/AS

Spanish court charges 10 priest for child sexual abuse


Tue Jan 27, 2015 9:42PM
Pope Francis
Pope Francis
A judge in Spain has charged 10 Roman Catholic priests with sexually abusing a child in the 2000s.

The priests were charged on Tuesday, five months after Pope Francis phoned the victim to offer the Catholic establishment’s apology. 
According to the court, the abuse started when the victim was a 14-year-old altar boy and lasted until he was 17, in a house rented by the perpetrators in the Spanish city of Granada.
The victim, now 24 years old, had written to the pope explaining the abuse. In August the Pope phoned the victim.
Following the papal conversation, which was later confirmed by the pope himself, an official church investigation was opened, during which the Archbishop of Granada, Francisco Javier Martinez, dismissed several priests, who were linked to the case.

Earlier reports 
According to earlier reports, the victim maintained links with the Roman Catholic Church, by teaching in the conservative Opus Dei organization. 
He had told authorities that he believed other children were also abused by the same group, whose members also had sexual relations with each other.

Zero tolerance
The pope has promised a zero tolerance policy for child sex abuse by clerics following a multitude of scandals related to the church over the last few years.   
Rights groups representing victims say that not enough has been done.
According to the Vatican, around 850 priests accused of the sexual abuse of minors have been defrocked between 2004 and 2013.
The Roman Catholic Church has been hit by numerous scandals in the US and Europe in the past few years, including allegations of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests to protect the pedophiles as well as its own reputation.
SRK/MHB/AS

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Maid in Hong Kong was ‘unpaid slave’: Prosecutors


freemalaysiatoday.com

January 20, 2015
Erwiana Sulistyaningsih described in vivid detail how she was "tortured", living for months on nothing but bread and rice, sleeping only four hours a day and being so badly beaten by her then-employer.
slavery
HONG KONG: A Hong Kong employer accused of starving and beating her Indonesian maid treated the woman as an “unpaid slave”, prosecutors said Tuesday on the last day of hearings in a case which has shocked the city.

In the course of the six-week trial, 23-year-old Erwiana Sulistyaningsih described in vivid detail how she was “tortured”, living for months on nothing but bread and rice, sleeping only four hours a day and being so badly beaten by her then-employer Law Wan-tung that she was knocked unconscious.
Pictures of Sulistyaningsih, who was admitted to hospital in Indonesia last January emaciated and in critical condition, sparked widespread anger in her home country and even drew comment from the president.
In closing arguments prosecutors admitted it was “difficult to determine” when the injuries were inflicted but concluded that Sulistyaningsih was enslaved by Law, 44, who denies all charges of abuse.
“The defendant was never satisfied with her work. The question was why did it take seven months for her to send her away? This certainly defies common sense. The only explantation was that (Sulistyaningsih) was treated like a slave, an unpaid slave,” said prosecutor Louisa Lai.
Law’s defence accused the former maid and another two domestic helpers involved in the case of being “opportunistic”. They said that if Sulistyaningsih’s account were true it would “amount to a horror story”.
“The evidence of Erwiana is unsatisfactory… so exaggerated as to impact on its truth,” said defence lawyer Graham Harris.
He suggested that her injuries could have been accidental.
“Can you rule out as a reasonable hypothesis that any scar or any damage might have been caused by accidental falls?” he asked the judge.
The case has shone a spotlight on the plight of migrant domestic helpers in Asia and the Middle East after reports of torture and even killings.
In March last year a Malaysian couple were sentenced to hang for starving their Indonesian maid to death, while in the same week a Singaporean couple pleaded guilty to abuse after their helper lost 20 kilos in seven months.
Such cases have prompted a clampdown on domestic worker visas in some countries — Myanmar suspended a seven-month-old scheme in September and Indonesia has pledged to stop sending domestic workers abroad from 2017.
Law faces 21 charges — also pertaining to two other former domestic helpers — including grievous bodily harm with intent, criminal intimidation and failure to pay wages. The most serious carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Sulistyaningsih and Law were both in court Monday but neither made a statement.
Protesters outside the court shouted “Justice for Erwiana!” and held placards reading “We are not slaves”.
The verdict was set for February 10.
- AFP

http://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2015/01/20/maid-in-hong-kong-was-unpaid-slave-prosecution-says/

Uncovering Spring Break's Hidden Underbelly

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Sold in Myanmar and trafficked to China



Jonah Fisher reports on woman and children being bought, sold and trafficked from Myanmar to China

Related Stories

It's been a year since Khin Khin Oo was sold by her father.
Eight thousand yuan ($1,300; £830): That was the price for a cute four-year-old Burmese girl from a broken home.
Crouched in the doorway of her bamboo house, Khin Khin Oo's grandmother Ma Shan told me the story. "I grow corn and rice but my son is a heroin addict so we have no money," she said.
Ma Shan's family life is in disarray. Just a couple of metres away in the dark of the house, her son sits listening to us talk about him, staring blankly ahead.
Ma Shan's daughter isn't in much better shape. She ran off with another man (according to Ma Shan, having been drugged with spiked orange juice), leaving her two small children to live with her parents.
One of them, an energetic boy, plays in the mud by the stilts of the bamboo house, as we look at pictures of his sister Khin Khin Oo.
"One day her father Soe Khine came back for her," Ma Shan recounted. "But after she'd been away four days I knew something was wrong."
A childhood photograph of Khin Khin Oo Khin Khin Oo was sold by her troubled father in Myanmar
An old photograph showing Khin Khin Oo's family The family was plagued by financial problems, Ma Shan said
Map of Myanmar-China border region The Chinese town of Ruili is located near the Burmese border
Fearing the worst, Ma Shan turned detective and, with a village elder, went to speak some of Soe Khine's friends. They quickly found out he was in financial trouble.
"He'd lost all his money playing cards," she said, shaking her head.

Start Quote

While she was gone, I didn't even want to eat; I was so worried”
Khin Khin Oo's grandmother
At that point, the Burmese police became involved. They found Soe Khine and he confessed that with the help of a local Kachin woman, he had sold his daughter to a Chinese trafficker.
The police followed the trail to the Chinese border town of Ruili, where they discovered that Khin Khin Oo had been traded again, this time for 12,000 yuan ($2,000; £1,277), to a childless couple who wanted to adopt.
After a week and a joint operation with the Chinese police, Khin Khin Oo was rescued and returned to her grandmother.
"While she was gone, I didn't even want to eat. I was so worried," she said.
Luckily Khin Khin Oo had been well treated, with the Chinese couple seemingly unaware that she'd been trafficked.
She was returned to her grandmother in Hankan who, fearing for her safety, sent her back to China this time to live with an aunt.
In this file photo taken on 16 November, 2013, women cuddle their child at Tiananmen Gate in Beijing, China China's one-child policy and the preference for sons has created a shortage of women in the country
Missing women The trafficking of Burmese children like Khin Khin Oo is thankfully rare.
But Myanmar's north-eastern border region with China has become notorious for the exploitation of young women.
China's one-child policy and its preference for sons has created a shortage of women and wives.

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There are four girls from Kutkai township who went to China to work; they haven't been heard from for eight months”
Myint Kyaw Community leader, Namkhan
 
 
Demographers estimate that by 2020, there will be a surplus of 24 million men, desperately looking for spouses.
The trafficking that we hear about along the Burmese border is complex, with the families often complicit in the financial transaction being made.
At his table in a camp for displaced people in Namkhan township, community leader Myint Kyaw is flicking through photos of missing women.
"These are four girls aged between 15 and 18 from Kutkai township who went to China to work. They haven't been heard of for eight months," he said.
"This lady is 26 years-old and missing too. We're trying to trace her through our community living in China."
In all, he estimates that about 10% of the local Ta'ang women have been sold or trafficked in some way.
Lamo Bokdin Lamo Bokdin, a victim of human trafficking in Myanmar, says she is now in the process of rebuilding her life
Escaped Lamo Bokdin is one of those women. When she took a job in a restaurant in the Chinese border town of Ruili, she thought she was a normal employee.

Start Quote

I refused [to marry her brother] but my boss said she would just sell me to someone else”
Lamo Bokdin Burmese trafficking victim

"Then my boss told me I didn't need to work at the restaurant anymore and that I was to marry her brother," she said.
Forty thousand yuan ($6,500; £4,152) had apparently been paid to secure the deal.
"At first I refused but my boss said she would just sell me to someone else." So Lamo was forced to move to her husband's home in Beijing. For three months, she was kept as a prisoner in his house.
"I wasn't allowed to make phone calls and I had to stay inside. My husband said we could only go and visit my parents when we had a baby."
Then after three months of captivity Lamo found a way to escape.
"I lived at the top of the two-storey building. The house had small windows covered with netting - so I cut the net with scissors and jumped down into the street," she explained.
"Luckily, nobody who saw me land cared. So I took a car to the train station where the police helped me get a ticket out of Beijing."
Lamo now shares a tent with her sister and is rebuilding her life. She earns a small amount of money weaving traditional skirts.
She is one of the survivors of a thriving trade in human lives.

Monday, January 5, 2015

جو تيوب | لازم نقلع عشان مصر

Trial shines light on teen sex trafficking in Milwaukee


Crime

Roy Kennard Weatherall, 45, is escorted into a courtroom at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on Thursday. He’s on trial on charges that he pimped, sexually assaulted and beat a girl and solicited others for prostitution.

Mike De Sisti

Roy Kennard Weatherall, 45, is escorted into a courtroom at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on Thursday. He’s on trial on charges that he pimped, sexually assaulted and beat a girl and solicited others for prostitution.

Milwaukee police detective Dawn Jones explained how girls are branded, literally, through tattoos, as property of one pimp or another

The young woman alternatively sobbed with longing and flared in anger as she testified about the man prosecutors say recruited her into prostitution when she was 15.
Roy Kennard Weatherall, 45, is on trial in Milwaukee for allegedly pimping, sexually assaulting and beating up the girl, soliciting others for prostitution and trying to intimidate witnesses not to testify against him — 14 counts in all. He says the girl was already prostituting before he met her, had already worked for a different man, and that she voluntarily gave him her earnings to help cover their living expenses.
If convicted, he would join a growing list of Milwaukee men who have drawn vulnerable young teens into the underworld life of prostitution, where they work long, dangerous hours and invest their total earnings and emotions with men they call "daddy."
Weatherall's main victim, named "SDD" in court documents, had come to authorities' attention in July 2013 when she was stopped by FBI agents during Operation Cross Country, an ongoing effort to identify and rescue minors caught in sex trafficking operations. It's a crime with disturbingly deep roots in Milwaukee. Several area men have been convicted of trafficking young girls and been sentenced to decades in prison. A Boys & Girls Club staffer who tries to inform youth about the dangers of traffickers, said the city is known as "the Harvard of sex trafficking." In the 2013 sweep, 10 children were rescued in Wisconsin, second only to 12 in San Francisco, according to the FBI.
Though she first denied she was reporting to any pimp, in September SDD gave her true story to the FBI and Milwaukee police. The opening came after Weatherall beat her during a car trip back to Milwaukee from a strip club dancing job in Wisconsin Rapids, she said.
SDD, now 18, ignored a subpoena earlier in the week and was arrested as a material witness. An attorney appointed for her said SDD would refuse to testify without immunity for any illegal activity she might describe.
By Wednesday afternoon, she finally took the witness stand. She said she never made it to high school. She said she met Weatherall in 2011 and "he seemed nice."
She had told investigators she began having sex with him late in 2011, while she was still 15, and she believed he was in his 20s. On the witness stand, however, SDD said she couldn't remember when it happened. "I can't remember the first time. I'm a prostitute. I've had sex with lots of men." She testified she had started prostituting at 13, under the control of a different pimp.
SDD said she moved into Weatherall's house on N. 16th St. and they got a dog for Christmas, and eventually she began dancing at strip clubs in northern Wisconsin for Weatherall.
She denied he made her do prostitution. She said she did that on her own but admitted she gave all the money she made to him "because I thought I was being taken care of."
Asked by the prosecutor if she still kind of liked Weatherall, SDD replied, "I love him."
Yet she also described how he beat her regularly and once made her ride naked in the back seat of a car from Wisconsin Dells to Milwaukee with the windows down, after a fight related to her dancing at a club. Back home, he beat her, using a metal pole that broke her elbow.
"He beat me senseless. I was blacking out," she told jurors.
"I looked like the 'Elephant Woman.' My face was broken," she sobbed. "Everything was broken."
That prompted her to leave for Florida, she said. But the prostitution business was "too busy" in Orlando and SDD returned to Milwaukee, and to Weatherall. She denied that his numerous Facebook pleadings for her to come back was a factor.

Looking for a father

During testimony Thursday, SDD repeated that Weatherall never made her work as a prostitute, or forced her to give him all her earnings or made her recruit other girls. She tried to say she couldn't remember things she told the FBI, but would then admit she was being truthful when she made the earlier statements. She said that though she went to her mother when she last left Weatherall, she's chosen to be homeless since his arrest, rather than stay with her mother.
Donna Sabella, a mental health nurse and professor at Drexel University, and an editor of the Journal of Human Trafficking, said the lives of young victims are much like domestic violence relationships, in which the victim loves the person who is abusing them, whether a spouse, parent or friend.
She noted for that for girls in prostitution, the trauma is worse the earlier they get involved, and often results in arrested development — young women with the social or emotional age of someone 12 or 13, someone who was lacking support in another environment.
"Somebody loves them for a minute," Sabella said of why girls fall in with pimps. "It has nothing to do with sex. Some really are looking for a father. The irony is they get the opposite of what they wanted."
Sabella supports the increased prosecution and awareness of trafficking, yet notes that at the same time it has become somewhat normalized through some music, pimp costumes and shows like "Pimp My Ride."
After hearing a description of SDD's testimony, Sabella called it a fairly common response among girls who have been trafficked. "What's going to happen to her now? That's as big an issue," Sabella said.
SDD was released from custody after her testimony Thursday.
Milwaukee police detective Dawn Jones testified she has investigated dozens of sex trafficking cases and spoken with hundreds of victims. Sixteen jurors listened intently as Jones laid out the culture, rules and lifestyle associated with "the game," and tried to explain why so many girls become part of it.
Jones explained how girls are branded, literally, through tattoos, as property of one pimp or another, and how they can "choose up" and work for a second pimp by looking one in the eye. Severe beatings and transfer payments may accompany the process.
Jones said successful pimps exercise such control over their "stable" that girls without other support find it hard to even imagine fending for themselves and will see working for a different pimp as their only escape. But sometimes, Jones said, the girls, or their families, do finally turn to law enforcement.
In Milwaukee, that cooperation has led to the conviction of several men for sex trafficking, and some very long federal sentences.
Weatherall was charged with soliciting a different 15-year-old girl for prostitution in 2005, after she was arrested in a sting. He wound up pleading to a charge of causing mental harm to a child but was later allowed to withdraw the plea. The Court of Appeals found there was an inadequate factual basis for the plea, because Weatherall denied encouraging the girl to engage in prostitution.
The charge was ultimately dismissed when prosecutors could not find the victim after the appellate ruling.
Weatherall's current trial is expected to last into next week. Other women who prosecutors contend he either pimped or tried to pimp are expected to testify.

About Bruce Vielmetti
author thumbnail Bruce Vielmetti writes about legal affairs.

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Human traffickers will not stop at anything

gulfnews.com

Latest tactic to avoid capture is to abandon ships after setting autopilot on course for European coasts
  • By Gulf News
  • Published: 16:49 January 3, 2015
  • Gulf News

There is no depth to which organised criminal gangs will not sink when it comes to making money off the plight of the desolate and the desperate. And as far as human trafficking and the smuggling of migrants from the shores of North Africa and the Middle East is concerned, these criminal barons are the lowest of the low.
Sadly, there is no shortage of migrants who are willing to risk their lives in a last desperate attempt for a better future in Europe. And the traffickers prey upon these vulnerable, taking from them their last savings. In return, the migrants are bundled onto leaky vessels and set sail on the high seas.
The latest disgusting tactic to avoid capture by the authorities is to abandon the ships after setting autopilots on course for the European coastline.
Twice in the past week naval authorities have had to intervene and take over these ghost ships and their miserable cargo of heaving humanity.

Europe’s frontier agency has vowed that it will do what it can to ease the plight of migrants. The reality, though, is that individual nations have curtailed their maritime patrols because of rising costs. Until such time as the European Union ensures that the navies of its nations have enough funds, the trafficking gangs will literally get away with murder.

 http://gulfnews.com/opinions/editorials/human-traffickers-will-not-stop-at-anything-1.1435491

Sea Rescue Operation for 450 Stranded Migrants

SPUTNIK

© Photo: Screen grab from Sky News
World
(updated 15:28 03.01.2015)
5510
Italian helicopters have been scrambled and rescuers are on board an abandoned people smuggling ship on the Mediterranean Sea.One of the migrants on board the livestock vessel used the ship's radio to call the Italian coast guards for help saying: "We're without crew, we're heading toward the Italian coast and we have no one to steer".
According to the ANSA news agency the ship was 40 miles off Italy's southeastern tip with as many as 450 people on board. Most passengers are believed to be from Syria.
Record numbers of people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East attempted the same perilous journey last year. During the summer, traffickers transporting human cargo use fishing boats and dinghies and the rough winter seas are seen as no deterrent. The boats are just bigger; the migrants are just as desperate.
"Freight boats departing from Turkey are now being used which is a new trend", according to Izabella Cooper, from the European border protection agency Frontex. "The smugglers buy old boats from scrap yards and put the migrants on them. They go to different countries to take more migrants in order to transport them to Italy".
Earlier this week, almost 1,000 migrants had to be rescued from another boat that had been abandoned by the captain and crew. Children and pregnant women, believed to be Syrian were on board.
Record numbers of men women and children died last year trying to reach the Italian coast on boats that are put to sea and then abandoned.
More than 170,000 had to be rescued by Italy in the last 14 months — and there now appears to be a new route, says Cooper "The Black Sea route from Turkey into Romania".
But since last October, Britain has withdrawn any support for any search and rescue operation to prevent mass drowning of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean Sea. Foreign Office ministers claim rescue operations encourage more people to risk their lives and subsequently more profit for traffickers.
However, the Home Office confirmed that the UK contributes a ‘de-briefer' who interviews migrants and refugees in order to help build a picture of the criminal networks involved in the human trafficking.
"Information gathered by a de-briefer who conducts voluntary interviews with the migrants is very important, it can definitely save lives," says Izabella Cooper.
"We can't conduct investigations but we do pass the information on to the migrant-receiving countries and Europol so that they can take action on the criminal networks. For every boatload of 400 people, the smugglers make a clear profit of one million euros,"
The people rescued at sea often admit that they know the dangers but are so desperate to flee that they are prepared to take the risks.
Izabella Cooper says pressure will remain high on the central Mediterranean route, with the situation in Libya crucial to that: about 87% of the Mediterranean crossings begin in Libya, where the trafficking gangs can work with almost complete impunity.
In 2014, more than 207,000 migrants and refugees made the risky Mediterranean crossing to get to Europe — nearly three times the previous highest figure of 70,000 in 2011. Of those, some 3,400 died.
Adrian Edwards, spokesperson for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), believes that 2015 is "a time of real need in the world. Conflict and displacement are on the rise, so we're heading into 2015 looking at difficult asylum environments with more people in flight".
Refugee and human rights organisations say Britain's decision to withdraw rescue support will contribute to more people dying in what's become a Mediterranean graveyard on Europe's doorstep.

http://uk.sputniknews.com/world/20150102/1013336986.html

Winning The War On Terror

SPUTNIK

© flickr.com/ Ministry of Defence
UK
(updated 15:21 29.12.2014)
11300
The threat from home-grown extremists radicalised in Britain are as realistic as the threats posed from other terrorist groups including Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant terrorist group, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda and Al Shabab.
In 2014, more than 207 people were arrested in Britain for terror related offences. In August, the terror threat level was raised from ‘substantial' to ‘severe' by the Home Secretary, Theresa May.  
The decision was made primarily because of developments in Syria and Iraq where security services believe more than 500 British-born Muslims have been radicalised and travelled to the Middle East to join ISIL.
However, that figure, according to researcher and Syrian political activist Danni Maki could be three times greater. ISIL and other terrorist groups in the region are still using the internet to coax and convince many young people to leave Britain and become terrorists, and the greatest threat that remains to people in the UK is when those that have been radicalised return.
No one is born a terrorist, because terrorism is a process, not an event, according to counter terrorism expert Hamed El-Said. Therefore he believes it can be reversed. However El-Said believes the process of countering radicalisation has been ignored and current counter terrorism programmes in place are, in his view, inadequate.
His book, 'New Approaches to Countering Terrorism', is dedicated to the theory of counter radicalisation and de-radicalisation. "My concern is that countering radicalisation was deliberately ignored. Anti-Americanism, anti-Western sentiments have been on the rise since 9/11. My fear and disappointment is that we in the West did not want to assume any responsibility for our policies in the region," he said.
The book states that terrorism is a crime like all other crimes. However violent extremism, according to El-Said, is confined to a small minority of fringe groups and individuals who take matters into their own hands and who are radical enough to commit acts of terrorism.
The rhetoric surrounding the so-called war on terror in the wake of attacks in Britain and America has, according to Hamed El-Said, Professor in International Business and Political Economy at Manchester Metropolitan University, led to the stigmatisation and negative labelling of Muslim communities, which has backfired in the fight to counter violent extremism.
"This only contributes further to the marginalisation of Muslim communities in the West. As long as we keep neglecting the root cause we will never defeat terrorism. So far we haven't been able to win the war on terror and it continues.
"In many cases it's actually got worse, there are more radicalised individuals around the world and there is more violent extremism in different parts of the world. We need to shift gears and change our policies and focus more on discrediting their approach and defeating their strategy. We need to be able to convince their followers that theirs is the wrong approach".
Professor El-Said believes that: "as long as there are injustices in the world, there is imbalance in the world and we need to deal with that if we are really genuine about undermining terrorism".
But it's not just about addressing inequality, imbalances and injustices. To truly counter terrorism and violence extremism, individuals who have been radicalised must know that there is an exit strategy.
"We need to encourage individuals to leave terrorism behind, we need to give them an opportunity to get out of terrorism and go back into real life — and we're not really doing that.
"If we don't provide them with an alternative path to leave terrorism I'm afraid we won't be able solve terrorism. Counter terrorism and de-radicalisation needs to become part of a larger reform of packages that deals with the reasons, if not we're going to talk about this subject for a long time to come".
In response to the number of British Muslims who have left Britain to join ISIL, the rhetoric surrounding countering extremism has ramped up in Britain and led to further scrutiny of the British Government's counter extremism strategy, 'Prevent', which has been in place for ten years.
Hamad El-Siad's book ‘New Approaches to Countering Terrorism' is to be published in January.

Two women jailed for human trafficking

Accused of luring victim to Dubai on pretext of working in salon
  • By Razmig Bedirian, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 19:58 December 29, 2014
  • Gulf News
Dubai: Two women on Monday received jail sentences after being found guilty of forcing a Moroccan woman into prostitution.
The suspects had lured the victim to Dubai under the pretence of securing her legitimate work.
Moroccan suspect A.A., 22, was sentenced to three years in jail while Syrian R.A., 28, was given a two-year jail term. Both suspects will be deported following their sentences.
According to court documents, the victim was rescued by her first customer.
“I met with a Saudi customer, who paid A.A. Dh1,500,” the victim told prosecutors. “When we were left alone, I broke into tears and told him my story. He felt sorry for me and bought me a ticket home and even drove me to the airport.”
In an earlier hearing, A.A. denied human trafficking charges, including locking up the victim and forcing her into prostitution. R.A. denied charges of running a brothel.
According to court documents, the victim was approached by a woman in Morocco, who offered her a job at a beauty salon in Dubai.
“I called A.A. when I arrived to the country on January,” the victim told prosecutors. “I took a taxi to a flat in the Al Nahda area. I was surprised to see about half-a-dozen other Moroccan women in the flat.”
The victim said A.A. took her passport.
“She told me that I would be working a prostitute,” she told prosecutors. “I was soon taken to a hotel in Dubai with the other women. The men would come and choose from among us. They were paying Dh1,500 for six hours with each of the women. I was not picked for a week and therefore did not have sex with anyone. My first customer was the Saudi man who helped me escape.”
She told prosecutors that she was not allowed to leave the country as her employment contract had not been cancelled.
“I went to the airport police and told them what had happened,” she said.
Authorities then arrested A.A. and R.A.
A police witness told prosecutors that the suspects had initially denied the claims.
“However, when we found the birth control pills and other evidence, R.A. confessed to prostituting women for Dh700,” he said.
 http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/courts/two-women-jailed-for-human-trafficking-1.1433749

Two who forced woman into prostitution convicted of human trafficking at Dubai court




NationalLogo

UAE


DUBAI // Two women who lured a Moroccan to Dubai with fake promises of a job before forcing her to work as a prostitute have been convicted of human trafficking by Dubai Criminal Court.
A A, 22, from Morocco, was sentenced to three years in jail, while Syrian R A, 28, was sentenced to two years. Both will be deported after completing their prison terms.
Records showed that the victim did not work as a prostitute because her first customer took pity on her.
In court in October this year, A A denied a charge of human trafficking, locking up the victim and forcing her to prostitute herself. R A denied a charge of running a brothel.
The victim told prosecutors she was approached by a woman in her home country who told her about a job in a beauty salon in Dubai.
“I was provided with A A’s phone number and arrived in Dubai on January 24 this year. I called A A who gave me directions where to go,” said the victim.
She arrived at a flat in Al Nahda and was surprised to see seven other Moroccan women there.
“A A took my passport right away then told me I will be working in prostitution,” said the victim.
She said she was taken along with the other women to a hotel in Dubai where they were shown to men. “They were paying Dh1,500 in return for 6 hours with each of the women,” said the victim, who added that after seven days she had not been chosen by any of the men and had not had sex with anyone.
A A then took the victim to a hotel where staff demanded her passport to allow her entry. “She handed them my passport then I met with a Saudi customer who paid A A Dh1,500, then she left. I sat with him and cried so hard and told him my story. He felt compassionate and booked me a ticket back to Morocco and even drove me to the airport,” she said.
At the airport, the woman was not allowed to leave the country because her employment contract had not been cancelled, so she headed to the airport’s police station and told officers what had happened to her.
A A and R A were later arrested.
Policeman S A, 35, testified that when questioned, both defendants denied all charges but after they were confronted by the victim and had evidence seized from their flat, they confessed.
“R A confessed she was prostituting women from Morocco and Syria for Dh700. We found birth control pills and other contraceptive means in her flat,” said S A.
salamir@thenational.ae
 
 http://www.thenational.ae/uae/two-who-forced-woman-into-prostitution-convicted-of-human-trafficking-at-dubai-court

Child abuse images must be removed from the internet before viewing them becomes an acceptable part of home life, says NSPCC chief


  • Peter Wanless wants all online child sex abuse images removed in 5 years 
  • NSPCC chief said it is important to ensure existence of the images do not slide into the dark corners of the acceptable and become part of life 
  • He said we should all feel guilty while abuse images still exist online
The chief executive of the NSPCC has called for all child abuse images to be removed from the internet in five years to ensure the 'dark corners' of the internet do not slide into being acceptable. 
Peter Wanless said while the task may be huge it was important to act now to avoid it being seen as a part of life to view child abuse images on the internet. 
He said all of us as a society should feel guilty while images of children being abused still exist on the internet and said he would like to see them all wiped from the web.
Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, has called for all child abuse images to be removed from the internet in five years to ensure online child sexual exploitation does not come an acceptable part of society
Peter Wanless, chief executive of the NSPCC, has called for all child abuse images to be removed from the internet in five years to ensure online child sexual exploitation does not come an acceptable part of society
Dozens of child abuse images exist on the internet, with four in every five featuring a child under the age of 11 being abused - some tortured or raped by an adult. 
Mr Wanless told the Daily Mirror: 'Do we want to blindly slide into a situation where, a few years down the line, there are endless pictures in existence and so many offenders viewing them that it becomes an almost acceptable part of the downside of life, like burglary or fraud? 
'Is that the kind of tainted legacy we want to pass on? It may take time to achieve but we have to commit now.' 
He said he wanted police, councils and the government to work together to tackle the issue - months after the children's charity warned that forces were struggling to cope with the number of child sexual abuse images being discovered online. 
In 2013 almost 5,000 computers were seized by just over a third of the 43 forces in England and Wales. But most forces have just six officers available to analyse often hundreds, or even thousands, of images. 
There were 2,393 arrests for possessing, downloading, distributing child abuse images in 2013-14, according to data from 30 police forces and charities have warned that with the increased popularity of the internet the problem is a growing one.
Mr Wanless said as a society we should feel guilty that child sex abuse images still exist on the internet 
Mr Wanless said as a society we should feel guilty that child sex abuse images still exist on the internet 
It is a crime that is also becoming more difficult to detect with criminals using sophisticated techniques to hide their identities and encrypt images online and share them.  
Last month David Cameron told a child abuse summit that online child sexual exploitation exists on an almost industrial scale throughout the world. 
He announced new laws to stop adults sending children sexual images. He also said a new joint specialist unit run by the National Crime Agency and GCHQ will aim to target offenders who do this to hide images on the 'dark net.' He said the same efforts would be made to tackle these criminals as is made to detect terrorists and international criminals. 
Mr Wanless said it was important to remember that the images were not just random pictures, but crimes had to have taken place for them to be created.
He added: 'Any society that allows such an evil scenario to play out uninterrupted must surely be demeaned and every one of us should feel at least a little guilty while it persists.'

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In a year, POCSO child abuse cases go up from 50 to 260

In a year, POCSO child abuse cases go up from 50 to 260
A protest in the city against increasing sexual attacks on women and children
Police allowing even weak complaints to be filed to blame for the rapid rise


In what seems to be a shocker, more than 150 rape cases against children have been reported this year - the highest ever in Bengaluru's history. Fear, confusion and desperation to prevent future cases have played an active role in the spiralling rise from a mere 15 cases of rape under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) last year, according to experts. According to statistics available with the Bangalore City Police, 260 cases have been registered under POCSO Act in 2014 alone. Of the 260 cases registered under the act, over 130 cases pertain to rape charges. In 2013, while 50 complaints were registered under the POCSO act, only 15 attracted rape charges.

The city police records say that this year, so far, 15 cases of rape on minors under IPC section 376 have been registered, which takes the total number of cases registered for rape to about 150. The POCSO Act came into effect from 2012. According to the police, north, east and south Bengaluru are at the top respectively in POCSO Act cases.

Additional commissioner of police (law and order) Alok Kumar said, "After POCSO Act came into effect, the sheer definition of rape has changed. Although POCSO Act came into effect in 2012, awareness came in force only after the 2014 Marathalli school rape. In the coming days the awareness may increase and most cases will be registered under POCSO Act."

Even lesser privileged in the society are becoming aware of the act and the law; so they too are coming forward to file complaints of sexual abuse on children whenever suspected. Earlier, social repercussions on the child and the stigma attached inhibited them from filingpolice complaints, Kumar said

The police have also faced the heat in the recent past for trying to fend off complaints - especially after the Frazer Town rape incident in which the case was booked for mere molestation. "Now, the police don't want to take chances and are registering the cases.

Totally the society and the situations have changed," he said while explaining the sudden increase in the number of cases.

Former chairperson of child welfare committee, Meena Jain, said, "The police are promptly registering cases. Earlier, the case was booked under IPC section; now any crime against children is booked under the POCSO Act."

But, she says, the reason for the number of cases of rape on children is rising because the sections are not well-defined by police. "They have to specifically mention the offence. There are seven offences in POCSO Act, besides 'penetrative sex' and 'aggravated sex' or any other kind of sexual assault. This has to be clearly defined in the case, the charges of rape may come down, she said.

The experts have also blamed children being over-bombarded with information, although with a well-intended aim to fortify them with knowledge and awareness so they can sense what is right and what is wrong.

However, the experts say, it may have led to the number of cases going up - many of them based on mere suspicion.

"Educating the child about the POCSO Act or 'good touch' and 'bad touch' is a major mistake committed after the Act came into effect," says Meera Jain. "Allow the child to grow naturally...The awareness has to be among the teachers and other staff."

Jain is critical of NGOs and the police visiting schools to spread such awareness among the children.

"If these are taught to children, they get confused and it will affect their mind. We should immediately stop teaching about good touch and bad touch to children. My friend's eight-year-old daughter went home from school complaining of headache. When her mother asked what happened the girl demanded an explanation on what rape is? The mother was not able to tell her anything."

Jain feels that only parents have to teach their children about what is good and bad. "Nimhans should release a book on what needs to be taught to a child and at what age," she feels.

Alok Kumar admitted to Jain's point, saying "Instead of us (the police) and a few NGO's going to schools educating children about the POCSO Act, we should actually educate the adults - the teachers, school staff, and people in residential areas. We should stop teaching the children about these things as it affects their mind.


IN PUBLIC DOMAIN

In July, a six-year-old girl studying in the school was sexually abused by two gym instructors in an international school in Marathalli. The gym instructors Lalgiri, 21, and Waseem Pasha, 28, along with the chairman Rusthum Kerilwala were arrested for not bringing the incident to the notice of the police.

In September, a 10-year old girl was allegedly sexually abused by the tuition teacher Biju, 31, in HSR Layout. He was arrested.

In October, a three-yearold girl complained of being sexual assaulted in another international school in Jalahalli. The attender Gundappa, 45, was arrested in the case.

In November, a Hindi teacher was alleged to have sexually abused a six-year-old girl in a school in Indiranagar.

In December, a three-yearold girl was raped twice by the attender. This incident occurred in the premises of an upscale school on Old Madras Road. The attender Nagaraj, 27, was arrested by the police.



'Educating kids on good touch, bad touch is a major mistake'


Educating the child about the POCSO Act or 'good touch' and 'bad touch' is a major mistake committed after the Act came into effect," says Meera Jain, former chairperson of child welfare committee. "Allow the child to grow naturally...The awareness has to be among the teachers and other staff."

Jain is critical of NGOs and the police visiting schools to spread such awareness among the children. "If these are taught to children, they get confused and it will affect their mind. We should immediately stop teaching about good touch and bad touch to children. My friend's eight-year-old daughter went home from school complaining of headache. When her mother asked what happened the girl demanded an explanation on what rape is? The mother was not able to tell her anything."

Jain feels that only parents have to teach their children about what is good and bad. Nimhans should release a book on what needs to be taught to a child and at what age," she feels. 
 

Lebanon's Domestic Workers Move to Protect Rights


The New York Times





BEIRUT — Migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are set to protect their rights under a trade union — the first such syndicate in the Arab world where more than 2.4 million foreign domestic workers labor under often harsh conditions.
The Labor Ministry said Monday they received a proposal from the National Federation of Labor Unions to form the syndicate in Lebanon. Migrant workers in Lebanon — mostly from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines — have fallen victim to unpaid wages, forced labor and even physical and sexual abuse.
At the root of the problem is the "kafala" system, or employee sponsorship arrangement inspired by Gulf Arab countries. Those systems hold the employer legally responsible for their migrant employee. Under this arrangement, domestic workers must rely on employers for their right to live and work in the country.
"We are trying to change the 'kafala' system so we can have steady salaries and fixed work hours," said Sujana Rana, a 36-year-old domestic worker from Nepal.
An amateur video showing a suicidal Ethiopian maid jumping from the fourth-floor balcony of her employer's apartment last November highlighted the level of desperation of some domestic workers in Lebanon.
"They are trapped by the 'kafala' system," said Nadim Houry of Human Rights Watch. "In this case it was someone who tried to kill herself and in other cases people are falling to their deaths because they are trying to escape from apartments."
The Labor Ministry will study the proposal determine whether the union's status is covered by the law, said Marlene Atallah, head of the ministry's foreign workers division.
"We are trying to help these women but there are obstacles," she said.
According to the Lebanese labor code, foreign workers cannot create their own union. However, domestic workers may belong to a new housekeepers union as long as it includes some Lebanese members.
"It's a big step forward," said Lily Jacqueline, a 49-year-old maid from Madagascar. "Maybe we could have a common contract for all domestic workers and force employers to abide by it."

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