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A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
1:00 P.M. EST June 24, 2010 | (UMNS)
A 9-year-old girl trafficked with her entire family from Bihar, India,
makes bricks from morning to night, seven days a week. Web-only file
photos by Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department.
Over the past decade, the U.S. government has stepped up its efforts to
combat global networks that foster modern-day slavery through forced
labor or commercial sex.
But this year’s recognition that the United States itself has “a serious
problem with human trafficking” is important, say United Methodists.
Linda Bales Todd, an executive with the United Methodist Board of Church
and Society, celebrated the fact that the U.S. Department of State, “is
willing, under the leadership of (Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton,
to include information on what is happening.”
The “2010 Trafficking in Persons Report,” released in June, ranks the
United States with those countries fully complying with the minimum
standards for protection of trafficking victims and provides information
on domestic efforts to combat human trafficking.
“The United States takes its first-ever ranking not as a reprieve, but
as a responsibility to strengthen global efforts against modern slavery,
including those within America,” Clinton wrote in the beginning of the
report.
“This human rights abuse is universal, and no one should claim immunity
from its reach or from the responsibility to confront it.”
This is information that social action coordinators with United
Methodist Women can use, added Susie Johnson, staff executive for public
policy with the Women’s Division, United Methodist Board of Global
Ministries.
Decade of attention
United Methodist Women has been involved with the trafficking issue for
more than 10 years, she said, often working ecumenically. In 2008, 70
participants representing 15 denominations attended a conference on
human trafficking in New York sponsored by the division and the Justice
for Women Working Group of the National Council of Churches.
A Nepalese mother holds a photo of her missing daughter, who was taken to a Mumbai, India, brothel.
The next year, United Methodist Women sponsored a national training event on human trafficking in Atlanta.
Now the organization has a network of 25 social action coordinators
training other members “who are actively working with their community to
bring this crime to the attention… (of) everyone in their community,”
Johnson said.
General Conference, the denomination’s top legislative body, first
adopted a resolution calling for the abolition of sex trafficking in
2004. The church also has supported “global efforts to end slavery”
since 2000, and has long called for the eradication of abusive child
labor.
The basis of the current fight against human trafficking was established
a decade ago when the United States enacted the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act and the United Nations adopted the “Protocol to Prevent,
Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and
Children,” also known as the Palermo Protocol.
“Since then, the world has made great strides in combating this ultimate
exploitation – both in terms of what we know about this crime and how
we respond,” the 2010 report said.
On a global level, the Palermo Protocol was the first international
instrument calling for the criminalization of all acts of trafficking.
It also promoted a “3P” response by governments – prevention, criminal
prosecution and victim protection.
“The crime is less often about the flat-out duping and kidnapping of
naīve victims than it is about the coercion and exploitation of people
who initially entered a particular form of service voluntarily or
migrated willingly,” the introduction to the 2010 Trafficking in Persons
Report noted.
The report says some 12.3 million adults and children are in forced
labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution around the world. Fifty-six
percent are women and girls.
U.S. situation
Children like this young girl are prized
in the Indian carpet industry for their
small, fast fingers.
In the United States, people are primarily being trafficked for
labor-related situations, the report said, including domestic servitude,
agriculture, manufacturing, janitorial services, hotel services,
construction, health and elder care, hair and nail salons, and strip
club dancing.
U.S. citizens, including runaway and homeless youth, are more are likely to be found in sex trafficking, the report said.
One focus of United Methodist Women is working to decriminalize the
police response to those runaway youth. “We want to ensure that police
departments have adequate training so they can provide care to survivors
of human trafficking,” Johnson explained.
Todd said human trafficking has become a popular topic for workshops
offered to denominational groups through the seminar program run by the
Board of Church and Society and the Women’s Division.
“In terms of education, local churches are more aware of the issue and are exploring things they might be able to do,” she said.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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