Project Veritas, Medicaid, Planned Parenthood and Child Sex Trafficking

Watch the video located within this article:

http://www.lifenews.com/2011/07/18/video-govt-official-sends-sex-traffickers-to-planned-parenthood/

A section pulled from the above article: “Even though the reporters admit to making their living through drug dealing or facilitating child prostitution, the case workers never called the police, Child Protective Services or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. In fact, the case workers appear eager to assist the reporters in filling out the necessary Medicaid paperwork.”

Go Texas!

Stiffer penalties for human trafficking now the law

2nd conviction now punishable by life in prison without parole

By LYNN BREZOSKY
SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

May 25, 2011, 10:26PM

Repeat convictions for trafficking humans for sex or forced labor in Texas will mean life in prison under legislation ceremoniously signed into state law on Wednesday.

Gov. Rick Perry, flanked by Attorney General Greg Abbott and bill sponsors Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, and Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, at the state Capitol touted the two measures for giving "a voice to the voiceless" in what he called modern-day slavery.

"Hopefully, when human traffickers understand their own freedom and profits are on the line, perhaps for the rest of their lives, they will think twice about trying to engage in these criminal activities," he said.

What the law means

Senate Bill 24, which the governor officially signed last weekend, creates a new offense for compelling prostitution by adult and child victims, toughens conditions for parole and bail, and defines prosecutable forms of human trafficking in forced sexual acts and forced labor. Trafficking in children becomes a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years to life in prison, plus a fine of up to $10,000.

Sex traffickers would have to register with the Texas Sex Offender Registry, and judges would have discretion to order human traffickers to serve consecutive rather than concurrent sentences.

Van de Putte said the law aims to treat human trafficking as among the "most vile of crimes."

"What could be more vile than selling another person, and particularly a child, for labor or for sex?" she said.

The measure also strengthens protections for victims, many of whom are runaways from other states or may be reluctant to speak out against their captors.

House Bill 3000, by Thompson, creates the new first-degree felony of Continuous Trafficking of Persons, which carries a punishment of life without parole upon a second conviction.

The laws implement recommendations of the Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force, created during the last legislative session and chaired by Abbott.

Thompson said there are more than 17,000 human trafficking victims in Texas each year.

"This is a strike for the little dogs, the little victims who are out there and get swept into this sea of slavery," she said.

At the local level

Robert Sanborn, president of Houston-based Children at Risk, said the laws give local prosecutors the tools they need to go after traffickers in their communities.

"I think the biggest difference is that, in the past, it's been easier for us to prosecute the traffickers and put them away by using federal law," he said. "This makes it easier for county attorneys, district attorneys on the local level to join in that fight."

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7581725.html#ixzz1TFEP95sw

Article Courtesy of: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7581725.html

Traveling this Summer? Support Hilton Hotel!

Look and see what Hilton is doing to combat child sex tourism!

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/05/27/cfp.hilton.sex.tourism.cnn

Global Information from Unicef

Trafficking is a violation of fundamental rights.

Trafficking in children is a global problem affecting large numbers of children. Some estimates have as many as 1.2 million children being trafficked every year. There is a demand for trafficked children as cheap labour or for sexual exploitation. Children and their families are often unaware of the dangers of trafficking, believing that better employment and lives lie in other countries.

Child trafficking is lucrative and linked with criminal activity and corruption. It is often hidden and hard to address. Trafficking always violates the child’s right to grow up in a family environment. In addition, children who have been trafficked face a range of dangers, including violence and sexual abuse. Trafficked children are even arrested and detained as illegal aliens.

Some facts:

• UNICEF estimates that 1,000 to 1,500 Guatemalan babies and children are trafficked each year for adoption by couples in North America and Europe.
• Girls as young as 13 (mainly from Asia and Eastern Europe) are trafficked as “mail-order brides.” In most cases these girls and women are powerless and isolated and at great risk of violence.
• Large numbers of children are being trafficked in West and Central Africa, mainly for domestic work but also for sexual exploitation and to work in shops or on farms. Nearly 90 per cent of these trafficked domestic workers are girls.
• Children from Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana are trafficked to Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Gabon. Children are trafficked both in and out of Benin and Nigeria. Some children are sent as far away as the Middle East and Europe.

Sexual exploitation

Sexual activity is often seen as a private matter, making communities reluctant to act and intervene in cases of sexual exploitation. These attitudes make children more vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Myths, such as the belief that HIV/AIDS can be cured through sex with a virgin, technological advances such as the Internet which has facilitated child pornography, and sex tourism targeting children, all add to their vulnerability.

• Surveys indicate that 30 to 35 per cent of all sex workers in the Mekong sub-region of Southeast Asia are between 12 and 17 years of age.
• Mexico’s social service agency reports that there are more than 16,000 children engaged in prostitution, with tourist destinations being among those areas with the highest number.
• In Lithuania, 20 to 50 percent of prostitutes are believed to be minors. Children as young as age 11 are known to work as prostitutes. Children from children’s homes, some 10 to 12 years old, have been used to make pornographic movies.

Information brought to you by: http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_exploitation.html

THINK before you CLICK

Child Porn, Sex Trafficking Funding Terrorism

09 June 2011

If we fail to hear the cry of the poor, we shall cry and not be heard.·

That’s the Proverbs 21:13 battle cry of Tony Nassif, president of Cedars Cultural Education Foundation, an organization committed to protecting women and children from trafficking and abduction.

With millions crying out for deliverance, Nassif poses two pointed questions: “Will we hear? Will we act?” Perhaps an understanding that terrorists who are aiming to destroy the United States and Israel are actively profiting from the trade.

“Christianity is not reflexive or docile,” says Nassif. “It is a proactive faith that is sharing the gospel to all of society and certainly setting the captives free.”·

As Nasiff sees it, anyone who is silent in the face of the problem trafficking women and children supports it.·

According to the FBI, the problem is real—and growing worse. Child pornography is the fastest growing type of smut in America’s booming $13 billion industry, generating more revenue than the NFL. Child pornography circulation exists, not only on American soil, but also globally. And news media shined a bright light on this truth after raids on Osama bin Laden’s compound revealed profuse amounts of pornography.

Terrorists and extremists not only use pornography, they profit on it. According to Nassif, Muslim extremists use child pornography to encrypt their messages and use pornographic websites to fund terrorist activity. Many of these extremists are highly educated Ph.D.s, communicating via websites with intelligence agency-level security.

Indefinite numbers of women and children involved in the pornography industry are victims of human trafficking. Indeed, Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, says: “The proliferation of hardcore adult pornography on the Internet and elsewhere is contributing to the demand for prostitution and thus, [the demand] for women and children trafficked into prostitution.”

As exploitation funds terrorism, many, including the U.S. government, consider human trafficking a form of terrorism in and of itself. Nassif reflects on the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons during the Bush administration, which rated nations on how they were combating human trafficking.

“For a nation to be on the report was a disaster,” Nassif recalls. “No one wants to be on the report. The key is public pressure. When you link them to something that sounds so horrific ... you’ll get the public opinion against them.”

Although sunlight may be a great disinfectant, Nassif believes the body of Christ plays an even bigger role. In fact, he says God has given the church a mandate to launch the largest anti-porn, anti-trafficking movement the world has ever known. That’s because Nassif has identified a demonic element as the root of pornography. Nassif isolates the stem of human trafficking and child abduction as code practices that incur the protection of the demonic spirits against law enforcement.

Despite the demonic guards, Nassif is confident that the church has a higher and more powerful spiritual element. The problem: the church is ill-equipped for the battle.

“This is a spiritual warfare. You don’t just get down and say ‘now I lay me down to sleep.’ You’ve got to have the gifts of the Spirit operating: most notably the gift of discernment, the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge to attack,” Nassif says. “When you start breaking down demonic kingdoms, then they get exposed. Unless the evil realm is engaged through the power of Jesus Christ, these insidious spirits of hate will continue to debilitate mankind.”

At the upcoming 8th Preventing Abuse Conference in Orlando, Fla., in August, Nassif and his team will deal with pornography's link to human trafficking and how it can be dealt with.

“A theme of the conference is to educate, motivate, activate," he says. "We educate the attendees about the problem. We motivate them that we all need to act and take a proactive role to protect our families but also to protect our nation. And then we activate them, by pointing them to organizations [that] we approve of to be involved with.”

From senators to state department officials and victims, supporters and speakers will identify the corrections and improvements legislation can make to effectively address the issues at hand.

“We will be dealing with the connection between pornography and human trafficking—the degenerative nature,” Nassif says in preview. He identifies the elements fueling the already spreading fire as “the sexualization of the culture, where the paradigms of right and wrong have disintegrated in the sand,” and the lack of consequences for sex outside of marriage. Nassif states, “The country is disintegrating into a hole of moral depravity where anything goes.”

And so, the founder of the conference returns to the drive of the church—hard passion. “[The church] won’t be closed at 9 o’clock at night when there’s a victim that law enforcement needs to have helped. The church was right there in the days of abolition. They are the ones that started the abolitionist movement and we still have the slaves today.”

The activist continues: “Church isn’t just four walls on a Sunday. Church is taking the gospel outside the four walls and being obedient to Christ as He said, 'going into all the world and making disciples of all nations.' Jesus never built four walls. The church has got to stop playing patty cake and the holy water and they've got to stop running away from the gifts of the power of the Holy Spirit. When you start committing [to] spiritual warfare and start holding the nation to moral accountability ... you’re going to see a turnaround.”

The Preventing Abuse Conference website states: “Problems regarding child kidnapping and human trafficking of women and children are relative abstracts to the general public because there doesn't seem to be a relevant connection.”

Until now, that is. In the recent findings of Osama bin Laden’s compound, replete in its pornography, a connection has been made, shining a bright light on how immorality is funding murderers.

http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/news/31217-child-porn-sex-traffiking-funding-terrorism

Now that you know- what are you going to do?

She lived to tell her story...

Check out this amazing story of a sex trafficking survivor:

http://sexmoneyherdofchildren.wordpress.com/mystory/

A Raid in The Philippines

6/29/11

AN Australian man could be jailed for life in the Philippines on human trafficking charges following raids on a notorious red-light district in which 100 women were rescued, police say.

Three bars in the northern city of Angeles that were known to be fronts for prostitution were raided last night, according to a statement from national police headquarters in Manila.

A number of other foreigners were also arrested after they were found having sex with some of the women and would face less severe charges than human trafficking, the statement said.

The manager of the Sunshine Bar, Australian Terrence James Smith, was detained, while about 100 female sex workers were rescued from the three establishments, the statement said.

Police said Mr Smith would be charged with human trafficking, which carries a maximum prison term of life.

One police officer involved in the raid, who asked not to be named, said the other foreigners picked up were two Americans and a Japanese.

Two Swedish men accused of running a cyber-sex den and charged with human trafficking were last month jailed for life in the southern Philippines.

Angeles has long had a reputation as a giant red-light district, initially for American soldiers when the city hosted Clark Air Base, which the United States handed back to the Philippine government in 1992.

Filipino authorities continued to turn a blind eye to prostitution in Angeles after the US forces left, with one section of the city devoted to strip bars and hotels catering to foreign men.

Yesterday's raids were linked to a US decision on Monday to remove the Philippines from a watchlist of countries deemed not doing enough to combat human trafficking, police criminal investigation chief Samuel Pagdilao said.

"Pagdilao said that the successive raids in Angeles City's red light district last night affirms the recent pronouncement made by the United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton," the police statement said.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/aussie-accused-of-human-trafficking/story-e6frf7lf-1226084392845

Vanity Fair's Article

Sex Trafficking of Americans: The Girls Next Door

Even as celebrity activists such as Emma Thompson, Demi Moore, and Mira Sorvino raise awareness about commercial sex trafficking, survivor Rachel Lloyd publishes her memoir Girls Like Us, and the Senate introduces a new bipartisan bill for victim support, the problem proliferates across continents, in casinos, on streets, and directly into your mobile device. And, as Amy Fine Collins shows, human trafficking is much closer to home than you think; victims, younger than ever, are just as likely to be the homegrown American girl next door as illegally imported foreigners. Having gained access to victims, law-enforcement officials, and a convicted trafficker, Collins follows a major case that put to the test the federal government’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act.....

Please take a look at the rest of this great article, click this link for the entire story: http://m.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/05/sex-trafficking-201105?currentPage=all

Sex-Trafficked Teens Find Protection in Georgia Law

When a young woman in Atlanta tried to escape her pimp in April 2010, his retaliation was swift and brutal. He ordered four other sex workers to beat the runaway until her eyes swelled shut and a bottle pierced her head.

Then the pimp locked the 21-year-old woman in a 3-by-5 foot dog cage overnight, bragging about her debasement by texting photos of the caged woman to other pimps. Police, tipped off by someone horrified by the photos, found the woman alive in a hotel and arrested the pimp and prostitutes.

A new law aimed at helping protect victims of sexual trafficking, will likely change the way such a case is handled.

Georgia legislators in April set higher fines and longer sentences on pimps, with a 25-year minimum prison sentence for coercing sex from anyone under 18. If a victim is under 16, those convicted of keeping a place of prostitution will be sentenced (PDF) to between 10 and 30 years. The new statutes (PDF) also protect adult women who were coerced into prostitution from being prosecuted.

An estimated 250 to 300 underage teens and girls are sexually exploited each month in Georgia, says Kaffie McCullough, campaign director of A Future. Not a Past, a campaign to reduce juvenile prostitution in Georgia. Yet many Georgians associate child sex trafficking with foreign countries and aren’t aware that it’s happening in their own state, she says.

Malika Saada Saar is founder of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, a group based in Washington, D.C., that works to prevent violence and exploitation of women. She echoes McCullough’s complaint that U.S. child exploitation gets ignored:

[There's support for] girls in India or Thailand, girls from fractured families who have endured abuse, who are very vulnerable, who have been lured or kidnapped into being trafficked for sex. But girls from those same situations from American circumstances are not recognized as victims; they are cast down as bad girls making bad decisions.

McCullough says the new law also allows prosecutors to seize the illegally gained assets of pimps and to use them for law enforcement, and to provide minors with victim compensation funds to provide counseling and residential treatment.

Kirsten Widner, director of policy and advocacy at the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Atlanta’s Emory Law School, helped draft the new Georgia law, which provides ways for prostituted adults and children to escape criminal charges if they can demonstrate they were coerced into sexual servitude. Forms of coercion include threats and providing drugs or shelter in exchange for sex. Like the privacy provisions of a rape shield law, this aspect of the law prevents prosecutors from using the sexual history of an exploited girl or woman against her in a criminal trial.

Georgia State Sen. Renee Unterman, a Republican, has championed the latest Georgia law, along with previous laws against child trafficking. A Democrat wouldn’t have gotten far in the Republican-controlled Atlanta legislature, says Unterman, and even she had to work hard to persuade her conservative colleagues that girls were being victimized in the state.

New laws on domestic sex trafficking are bringing the problem to light, says Samantha Vardaman, senior director of Shared Hope International in Washington, D.C., which is compiling a report card of such laws. But the nation, she says, “has a long way to go.”

This article was adapted from Women’s eNews. Read the full article at womensenews.org.

This post pulled from: http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/05/26/sex-trafficked-teens-find-protection-in-georgia-law/

Just 10 Things for the Guys Out There

10 Things Men and Boys Can Do to Stop Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is modern day slavery. It is the use of force, fraud, or coercion to compel another person to provide labor or commercial sex against their will, and it is one of the fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world.

The Renaissance Male Project believes that men are complicit in this crime when they purchase sex because they create the demand by allowing others to exploit women and children for profit. Men must play a role in ending this form of modern-day slavery, a vicious industry that exploits and perpetuates the suffering of hundreds of thousands of women and children in the United States and around the world.

Based on a list of statistics that The Polaris Project compiled:

• 27 million are enslaved globally.
• 14,500–17,500 individuals are brought into the U.S. as human trafficking victims each year.
• 1 million children enter the global commercial sex trade every year.

There are specific actions that men and boys can take to end these atrocities:

1. Challenge the glamorization of pimps in our culture

Mainstream culture has popularized the image of a pimp to the point that some men and boys look up to them as if they represent legitimate male role models, and they view “pimping” as a normal expression of masculinity. As Carrie Baker reflects in “Jailing Girls for Men’s Crimes” in the Summer Ms. issue, the glorification of prostitution is often rewarded, not punished, in pop culture:

Reebok awarded a multi-million-dollar contract for two shoe lines to rapper 50 Cent, whose album “Get Rich or Die Tryin” (with the hit single “P.I.M.P.”) went platinum. Rapper Snoop Dogg, who showed up at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards with two women on dog leashes and who was described in the December 2006 cover of Rolling Stone as “America’s Most Lovable Pimp,” has received endorsement deals from Orbit gum and Chrysler.

In reality, pimps play a central role in human trafficking and routinely rape, beat and terrorize women and girls to keep them locked in prostitution. Men can take a stand against pimps and pimping by renouncing the pimp culture and the music that glorifies it.

2. Confront the belief that prostitution is a “victimless crime”

Many men view prostitution as a “victimless crime.” But it is not. For example, American women who are involved in prostitution are at a greater risk to be murdered than women in the general population. Research also shows that women involved in prostitution suffer tremendous physical and mental trauma associated with their work. Viewing prostitution as a victimless crime or something that women “choose” allows men to ignore the fact that the average age of entry into prostitution in the U.S. is 12 to 14 and that the vast majority of women engaged in prostitution would like to get out but feel trapped. Men should stop viewing prostitution as a victimless crime and acknowledge the tremendous harm and suffering their participation in prostitution causes.

3. Stop patronizing strip clubs

When men think of human trafficking, they often think of brothels in countries outside of the U.S. However, strip clubs in this country as well as abroad may be a place where human trafficking victims go unnoticed or unidentified. Strip clubs are also places of manufactured pleasure where strippers are routinely sexually harassed and assaulted by owners, patrons and security personnel. Men rarely consider whether women working in strip clubs are coerced into that line of work, because to do so would conflict with the pleasure of participating in commercialized sex venues. Men can combat human trafficking by no longer patronizing strip clubs and by encouraging their friends and co-workers to do the same.

4. Don’t consume pornography

Pornography has the power to manipulate male sexuality, popularize unhealthy attitudes towards sex and sexuality and eroticize violence against women. Pornography leads men and boys to believe that certain sexual acts are normal, when in fact sexual acts that are non-consensual, offensive and coupled with violent intent result in the pain, suffering and humiliation of women and children. In addition, a disproportionate amount of mainstream pornography sexualizes younger women with such titles as “teens,” “barely 18,” “cheerleaders,” etc. Targeting younger women socializes men to develop appetites for younger and younger women and creates a pedophiliac culture among men. Victims of human trafficking have also been forced into pornography. Men can stop the voyeurism of sex and sex acts that fuel human trafficking by refusing to consume pornography and encourage others to do the same.

5. Tackle male chauvinism and sexism online

Contrary to the myth that men do not gossip, men spend a significant amount of time online discussing their sexual exploits. The Internet provides many men with the ability to mask their identities while indulging in racist, sexist and violent diatribes against women and girls. Choosing to be a critical voice online is an extremely important way to educate and inform men and boys about their choices. Men can change this culture by starting threads in online forums that cause men to talk about their attitudes towards women and how these attitudes and behaviors are linked to human trafficking.

6. End sex tourism

Men in the U.S. and other “first world” nations routinely travel overseas and have sex with women in developing countries. When men engage in these practices, they do not acknowledge the fact that many trafficked women and children come from developing countries—even in countries where prostitution is “legal.” Traveling overseas grants men a great deal of anonymity. As men, we have a responsibility to confront the men that go overseas and participate in sex tourism.

7. Talk to men and boys about men’s issues in male spaces

The only way to change men is by engaging spaces where men and boys talk and develop their ideas and attitudes towards sex and sexuality. Males spaces such as barbershops, locker rooms, fraternities and union halls are the real classrooms where boys learn to become men and where men develop most of their ideas about how to interact with women. If men do not feel comfortable talking about these issues in male spaces, they can drop off informational brochures and make themselves available to talk with other men and boys when they have questions or concerns. As men, we need to turn male spaces into circles of accountability where men learn about non-violence, social justice and ending violence against women.

8. Support anti-human-trafficking policies

President Obama declared January 2010 as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. However, more substantive legislation is required to end human trafficking. Men can educate themselves about the issues by visiting anti-trafficking organizations and by asking their elected officials what they have done to support or sponsor anti-human trafficking legislation. One of the most important acts men can do to stop human trafficking is to support anti-trafficking legislation at the local, state or federal level.

9. Support creation of “John Schools”

There would be no human trafficking if there were was no demand for it. Strategies aimed at ending human trafficking must focus on eliminating the demand. “John Schools” are education programs designed to educate customers apprehended by law enforcement who attempted to purchase sex. By teaching the legal and health effects of buying sex and the realities of prostitution, such schools impart knowledge that can reduce demand, making men conscious of how their actions can spur on human trafficking. Learn whether or not your local community has a John School. If not, encourage your local prosecutor’s office or city counsel to start one.

10. Raise sons and mentor boys to challenge oppression

No boy is destined to be a “john,” a pimp, or a human trafficker. Raising young men in circles of accountability to be respectful and protective of all women and children is one of the most important things men can do to stop human trafficking. Talk about human trafficking as a modern form of slavery to help convince men and boys to become allies in the fight to end this form of oppression.

Contents pulled from a blog that used information from the Renaissance Male Project’s informational brochure, original blog post can be found at:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/08/04/10-things-men-and-boys-can-do-to-stop-human-trafficking/