Human Trafficking Around the World (17 page)

In order to aid women in prostitution—including sex-trafficking victims—in December 2008 the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs put $2.5 million toward emergency apartments in Tel Aviv and Haifa, a mobile clinic, and a hotline. Seventy women benefited from the project, but none were identified as trafficking victims. In 2008 the Committee of Directors General approved and circulated procedures to identify labor-trafficking victims to relevant government entities and NGOs. It has been reported by NGOs that the guidelines were not implemented and that the Detention Tribunal that reviews immigration violation cases still misclassifies labor-trafficking cases on a regular basis, with the result that these victims are detained and deported. One potential safeguard against the forced labor of caregivers is a system launched by the interministerial committee for licensing nursing recruitment agencies and employing foreign caregivers. The system allows workers who legally enter the country to obtain other employment if they lose or choose to leave their job (U.S. Department of State, 2009). There remains a somewhat strained relationship between the government’s intent to protect foreign workers and the belief that foreign workers are taking jobs away from Israeli citizens. For instance, the Socio-Economic Agenda for 2008–2010, recommendations made to the government of Israel by the National Economic Council, was adopted by the government on April 22, 2007, which reveals its resolve to further reduce the number of foreign workers. The National Economic Council reports that the majority of legal foreign workers are employed in construction, agriculture, and care for the elderly and are competing for jobs with Israelis at the lower wage levels. Consequently, the government states that there is no choice but to continue severely reducing their number (National Economic Council, 2007). In line with this, on May 16, 2011, the Knesset passed the Entry into Israel (Amendment No. 21), which grants the MOI the authority to establish a cap on the number of times a foreign worker who works in home health care for the elderly may transfer to a new employer. The stated objective of the law is to prevent misuse of visa and residence permits (Knesset, 2011c). NGOs have expressed concern about the new law because it binds labor migrants in home health care to their employers, increasing their vulnerability to exploitation and human trafficking (Cohen & Mozgovaya, 2011).

As with other nations, it appears that Israel’s recent immigration and anti-trafficking agendas are in direct conflict. The new Entry into Israel amendment binds foreign workers to sectors and geographic regions, and migrants who are found in violation for more than 90 days will be deported (Knesset, 2011c). The result could be similar to the treatment of temporary worker visas in the United States, which has created employer dependence and the opportunity for employee exploitation and deportation without thorough investigation of whether the worker is a trafficking victim. One recent concern expressed by experts and confirmed by the Knesset’s Research and Information Center is that anti-trafficking efforts have diminished since the newly created immigration and border control authority (the Oz unit) replaced the Immigration Police. NGOs assert that Oz inspectors do not convey information to police when they encounter a suspected crime against migrant workers. NGOs also report that all labor trafficking prosecutions since the initiation of the Oz unit were a result of NGO efforts, not of investigations by the government (U.S. Department of State, 2010a).

Israel has taken numerous positive anti-trafficking steps on paper. It remains to be seen whether implementation will be successful and what continuing impact the new immigration policies will have on the nation’s anti-trafficking efforts. While the anti-trafficking law encompasses victims of forced labor, the government has largely failed to identify these victims and to prosecute the employers who exploit them. In 2009, 61 forced-labor cases were opened, but these cases face long delays. For instance, the first forced-labor indictment under the anti-trafficking law was filed in 2008 and was still pending in 2010. The same is true for internal trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. The government has taken measures on paper to provide internal victims with shelter and services, but law enforcement often fails to identify these victims.

It would aid victims greatly if the Israeli government and authorities in the OPT would collaborate in sharing information on trafficking cases and investigations. Otherwise this gap in communication will continue to provide traffickers with a loophole where they can exploit Palestinian women in Israel and the OPT without consequences. These women are extremely marginalized and have little access to assistance whether in Israel or the OPT.

PART III

Unrest, Displacement, and Who Is in Charge

The displaced person’s experience is often littered with the death and murder of loved ones, rape, physical abuse, and the pillage of land and property. Uprooted, displaced persons have lost their support system, and with the ghosts of their experiences in tow, they are forced to migrate to a different town or nation. Continued uncertainty, financial strain, and lack of legal and/or societal inclusion go hand-in-hand with displacement, which results in acute vulnerability to human trafficking
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In Colombia, civil unrest has resulted in between 3.6 and 5.2 million internally displaced persons. The Constitutional Court in Colombia has ruled that the disparity between the rights guaranteed to internally displaced persons by domestic law and the inadequate resources and institutional capacity of the government to protect these rights has resulted in an “unconstitutional state of affairs.” Forced to work and live outside the periphery of society, displaced persons have minimal access to education, health care, and housing. Countless paramilitary groups exist in Colombia and are notorious for the violence and havoc they wreak on communities, particularly those of Afro-Colombians and indigenous people. They seize land and cause displacement throughout the countryside, and they use children to further their objectives. Children are forced to be soldiers, sexual partners, and workers in the illegal drug trade
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As a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an estimated 4.8 million Iraqis were displaced between 2003 and 2009. Children, who make up 38–40 percent of those internally displaced in Iraq, face abduction and violence, and are used by Iraqi insurgent groups as spies or scouts, to plant improvised explosive devices, and as suicide bombers. Externally displaced Iraqis don’t have it any easier. In Syria, host to the largest number of externally displaced Iraqis, the economic and social situation of Iraqi refugees has made them immensely vulnerable to human trafficking. Fifty Iraqi females are imprisoned on prostitution charges each week in Syria; many are trafficking victims
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Syria, since March 2011, is experiencing its own civil unrest. Despite the government’s agreement with the Arab League, Syrian security forces have continued violence against civilians. As a result of army defections, the Syrian government claims that the opposition has become more militarized. The human rights violations by President Bashar al-Assad and his regime were the impetus for the uprising, yet a November 2011 opinion poll revealed that 55 percent of polled Syrians do not want him to resign. For many, the desire for Assad to stay in power is based on a fear for the future of the country. As the death toll and potential for civil war increase, there is the real threat of a deterioration of society, lawlessness, continued violence, displacement, economic hardship, and the absence of a just law-enforcement and judicial system (which is already in question). This situation sets the stage for a continuing increase in numerous human rights violations, including exploitation and human trafficking
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In Colombia and Iraq there remains the question of who is in charge. On the surface, the rebel groups in Colombia are disconnected from the government; but former paramilitary commanders and experts say the guerrillas are merely the armed wing of a multiheaded monster. Those in charge of the economic and political arms of the paramilitary groups, they say, are high-level officials, politicians, members of the public security forces, business leaders, contractors, and foreign investors. The degree of collusion between members of the government and the paramilitaries is not yet known, but it is suspected that the real leaders of the paramilitaries are those who currently exercise political power
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Just over a year after the United States invaded Iraq, the U.S. was an occupying power that claimed to have no responsibility as the occupying authority. By that point, the U.S. government had handed sovereignty back to Iraq multiple times, yet it still remained the occupying power and in ultimate control of the nation. As an occupying power, the United States handled appointments and dismissals and even granted itself, its contractors, and the Iraqi military immunity from the Iraqi legal system. Under a U.S. order (CPA Order 17), the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and the Multi-National Force, along with foreign liaison missions, their personnel, property, funds, and assets, and all international consultants, including contractors and subcontractors, were immune from the Iraqi legal process. In June 2004 the U.S. government also imposed a formal policy to ignore human rights abuses committed by the Iraqi military. Under the policy, coalition troops were barred from investigating any violations committed by Iraqi troops against other Iraqis. Thus those assigned to protect civilians were also, as enforcement personnel, in a unique position to exploit them with immunity
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For internally displaced persons in Colombia, without significant changes and protections of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, it doesn’t much matter who legally rules the country when paramilitaries continue to rule their lives. In Iraq, the Iraqi government passed legislation to rescind CPA Order 17 in 2008, but the legislation does not specifically address how past incidents will be addressed. In the United States there is at least one large lawsuit against a U.S. contractor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. A suit was brought against Kellogg Brown & Root and its Jordanian subcontractor Daoud & Partners for allegedly trafficking Nepali workers in Iraq; twelve of whom were kidnapped and executed by insurgents. The case is ongoing, and a trial date has been set for April 29, 2013
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CHAPTER 6

Colombia

Whether it was the police, the army, or the paramilitaries: when they said “go to the front,” you had to go, and it was hard because we had to walk for days without sleep and hardly eating anything. I was saddest when I saw friends die.

—ESTELLE, A CHILD SOLDIER

Understanding Colombia’s trafficking scenario depends upon understanding the displacement that has resulted from decades of civil unrest. As recently as December 2009 there were between 3.6 and 5.2 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia. This number places the nation on par with Sudan, the country with the largest displacement situation in the world (4.9 million) (IDMC, 2009; IOM, 2011). The Observatory on Human Rights and Displacement reported that 89,000 people were displaced in the first half of 2011. The government reported lower numbers and stated that 44,000 people were registered during that time (IDMC, 2011). The nonprofit and nonpartisan U.S. Office on Colombia reported in 2004 that women in particular have been disproportionately displaced by the armed conflict. The report stated that over 50 percent of Colombian IDPs were women, and over 70 percent were either women or children (USOC, 2004). Displaced Colombians have little access to education, health care services, and housing (UNCRC, 2000). Consequently, they are more vulnerable to exploitation, including human trafficking and domestic violence. The report stated that 52 percent of Colombian displaced women faced domestic abuse compared to 20 percent of nondisplaced women (USOC, 2004).

Despite the assurance of equal rights and protections for all Colombian citizens under the constitution, Colombia has had a longstanding division between the wealthy and poor, with little to no social or economic mobility for those not born into the upper class. The inflexible social hierarchy created opportunity for guerrilla and paramilitary groups to insert themselves into the fabric of Colombia under the guise of helping the disadvantaged. Groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) are Marxist revolutionary guerrilla groups that claim to represent the interests of the rural, and more recently the urban, poor (Hanson, 2009); yet both groups have forcibly taken land from the poor. Afro-Colombians in particular have been unable to protect their land rights from paramilitary and guerrilla forces. While land titles are inalienable, paramilitary and guerrilla forces are not known to abide by the letter of the law (UNHCR, 2004).
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Guerrilla and paramilitary groups also recruit disadvantaged children within Colombia to further their objectives. They use children as combatants, informants, messengers, sexual partners, transporters, placers of bombs, guarders of hostages, kidnappers, spies, and workers in the illegal drug trade (U.S. Department of Labor, 2004; U.S. Department of State, 2010a, 2010b).

To address the situation, the Colombian government has tried to weaken guerrilla and paramilitary groups. In a series of attacks and counterattacks, it has been a roller coaster of a struggle. In 2008 the attacks against the guerrilla and paramilitary groups appeared to be effective—particularly when it seemed that the FARC was weakened. But the conflict regained strength in 2009 and 2010. The paramilitary armed groups were remobilized and continued to commit significant human rights violations, threatening security in Colombia’s cities (IDMC, 2009). The government struck back, and in September 2010 Colombian security forces killed Víctor Julio Suárez Rojas (a.k.a. Mono Jojoy), the second in command of the FARC, and roughly 20 other FARC members in a massive air strike in the region of La Macarena in the department of Meta in central Colombia (Alsema, 2010).