Tag Archive: COVID
October 4, 2021
Highlighting how the COVID pandemic has pushed as many as 124 million more people into extreme poverty, the UN chief insisted that “many millions” have been left vulnerable to the scourge.
Half of victims in low-income countries are children, Mr. Guterres noted, just ahead of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, adding that most are trafficked for forced labour.
“Criminals everywhere are using technology to identify, control and exploit vulnerable people,” the UN chief said, adding that children are increasingly targeted through online platforms for sexual exploitation, forced marriage and other forms of abuse.
UNODC campaign
Coinciding with this year’s World Day, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has launched a campaign titled ‘Victims’ Voices Lead the Way’ to put a spotlight on victims’ untold stories, and on their roles in the fight against trafficking.
Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Waly, said “victims’ voices are key to preventing trafficking, supporting survivors, and bringing perpetrators to justice.” Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened vulnerabilities to trafficking, she said “victims’ contributions are more critical than ever”.
UNODC assists countries and all stakeholders in implementing the Trafficking in Persons Protocol, and in developing victim-centred approaches. Through the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, the agency also provides essential support to victims, and helps empower them as part of the response.
Ms. Waly called on all Member States to support the fund and help amplify victims’ stories.
Racism and xenophobia
“Rather than being protected and assisted without discrimination as children at risk, child victims of trafficking are treated as irregular migrants or subjected to criminal prosecutions, and have their age and credibility questioned,” said UN-appointed expert on human trafficking, Siobhán Mullally.
Ms. Mullally joined the call for action, stating that “racism, xenophobia and gender-based discrimination are putting the human rights of trafficking victims at risk and enabling those who carry out the illegal trade to continue with impunity.
“Instead of being identified as victims of a serious human rights violation, victims are being arrested, detained, denied assistance and protection and even forcibly returned to countries of origin because of racial profiling and discrimination at border crossings and in criminal justice systems.”
Read the full story on UN News.
August 5, 2021
Highlighting how the COVID pandemic has pushed as many as 124 million more people into extreme poverty, the UN chief insisted that “many millions” have been left vulnerable to the scourge.
Half of victims in low-income countries are children, Mr. Guterres noted, just ahead of the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, adding that most are trafficked for forced labour.
“Criminals everywhere are using technology to identify, control and exploit vulnerable people,” the UN chief said, adding that children are increasingly targeted through online platforms for sexual exploitation, forced marriage and other forms of abuse.
UNODC campaign
Coinciding with this year’s World Day, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime has launched a campaign titled ‘Victims’ Voices Lead the Way’ to put a spotlight on victims’ untold stories, and on their roles in the fight against trafficking.
Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Ghada Waly, said “victims’ voices are key to preventing trafficking, supporting survivors, and bringing perpetrators to justice.” Noting that the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened vulnerabilities to trafficking, she said “victims’ contributions are more critical than ever”.
UNODC assists countries and all stakeholders in implementing the Trafficking in Persons Protocol, and in developing victim-centred approaches. Through the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, the agency also provides essential support to victims, and helps empower them as part of the response.
Ms. Waly called on all Member States to support the fund and help amplify victims’ stories.
Read the full story on UN News.
July 27, 2021
The study further assesses how frontline organizations responded to the challenges posed and continued to deliver essential services, despite restrictions across and within national borders.
Online prey
Meanwhile, traffickers took advantage of the global crisis, capitalizing on peoples’ loss of income and the increased amount of time both adults and children were spending online.
“The pandemic has increased vulnerabilities to trafficking in persons while making trafficking even harder to detect and leaving victims struggling to obtain help and access to justice,” said UNODC Executive Director, Ghada Waly.
“This study is an important new resource for policy-makers and criminal justice practitioners, as it examines successful strategies to investigate and prosecute human trafficking in times of crisis. It also provides recommendations on supporting frontline responders and victims and building resilience to future crises.”
The report shows that measures to curb the spread of the virus increased the risk of trafficking for people in vulnerable situations, exposed victims to further exploitation and limited access to essential services for survivors of this crime.
“Traffickers prey on vulnerabilities and often lure their victims with fake promises of employment,” explains Ilias Chatzis, Chief of UNODC’s Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section, which developed the new study.
Read the full story on UN News.
June 10, 2021
MILWAUKEE —Sex trafficking of children has likely increased since the pandemic started, according to law enforcement and community advocates.
Keeping kids home during the pandemic was meant to protect them.
However, it led to a huge jump in time spent online and for vulnerable minors, a downward spiral.
“A lot of our victims meet their traffickers on social media,” said Detective Rodney Gonzales. Gonzales is a detective with Milwaukee Police Department’s sensitive crimes unit and has been with MPD for 24 years. “About half of my victims are juveniles and I’ve had human trafficking victims as young as 12, 13.”
WISN 12 News investigated the number of reported cases.
According to MPD, the number of reported cases in sex trafficking of minors decreased in 2020, from 30 reported cases in 2019 to 17 reported cases last year.
However, Gonzales and his partner, Detective Anna Ojdana, said those statistics don’t tell the full story.
“I think all the numbers are underreported. We do see a lot of crimes associated with human trafficking. For example homicides, batteries, domestic violence offenses,” Ojdana said. “Milwaukee is definitely a hub for sex trafficking. It’s easy access. Highways connect you to all the other states. We see a lot of people coming from Green Bay and Appleton. We see victims from Chicago and Minnesota.”
MPD, the Milwaukee U.S. Attorney’s Office and community advocates all told WISN 12 the pandemic has likely made sex trafficking of children worse.
Predators know teens are online all day and target minors on the same social media apps their peers use.
“It’s Snapchat, it’s Tagged, it’s Kik, it’s Facebook, it’s Instagram,” Ojdana said. “OnlyFans is included as well.”
Officials in the U.S. Attorney’s Office told WISN 12 predators target vulnerable kids and that a single predator often times sends messages out to a hundred different minors a day, saying anything to get their attention.
Since shelters and outreach programs temporarily closed during the pandemic, community
advocates said more under-supported teens likely fell into those traps.
Read the full story by Caroline Reinwald on WISN.
June 8, 2021
Invisible to those ashore yet instrumental in keeping afloat the comforts of daily life, seafarers have long seeped through the cracks as they straddle worlds and identities.
They have home countries but live literally adrift, becoming strangers to all nations. They play a role in 90% of global trade but are not typically considered essential workers. They are prone to abuse and exploitation but often fall just outside the realm of trafficking advocacy.
Now, because of the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of thousands of these itinerant workers are also trapped.
For seafarers, who are responsible for delivering most food, medicine, electronics and even racehorses around the world, disembarking at most international ports has become an impossibility. The ship may be welcome, but to the community where it docks, members of the crew are perceived as potential carriers of COVID-19, even though they have typically been at sea for longer than the virus lasts.
“They’re sort of like prisoners, now more than ever,” said Sr. Mary Leahy, a Sister of St. Joseph of the Sacred Heart who ministers to seafarers as the port chaplain for Stella Maris, Australia in Sydney.
The inability to get off ships means crew changes are less likely, so even when a seafarer’s contract expires after several months of labor, his or her tie to the job can get extended indefinitely. And because crews tend to be made up of individuals who come from poverty, their desperation for an income can be abused easily, as official complaints may leave them blacklisted from other jobs, Leahy said.
“It’s fertile ground for exploitation,” she said.
Since the plight of seafarers is distant to those on land, the international campaign Solidarity with Seafarers is bringing it to the fore, educating the public on the link between the products they buy and the people who deliver them as well as encouraging corporations to examine their suppliers’ human rights practices.
The campaign — a joint effort by Coalition of Catholic Organizations Against Human Trafficking, Stella Maris, and the Apostleship of the Sea of the United States — has its eye on one particular whale of a retailer: Walmart.
Petitioning for Walmart to sign the Neptune Declaration on Seafarer Wellbeing and Crew Change is the campaign’s ultimate concrete goal. The international pact, which over 800 companies have already signed, would help recognize seafarers as essential workers, give them priority access to COVID-19 vaccines, and establish better protocols to ensure timely crew changes, said Jennifer Reyes Lay, executive director of U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking, which organized the petition.
Because Walmart has previously demonstrated a proactive interest in addressing forced labor practices in its supply chains, Reyes Lay said, this push for Walmart to include seafarers in that commitment is as possible as it would be impactful.
“It’s modern slavery … and companies that import stuff should be able to prove there’s no slavery in the chain,” Leahy said.
Read the full story by Soli Salgadoon Global Sisters Report
May 5, 2021
The pandemic-related economic downturn, business closures, increase in global unemployment and reduced incomes have contributed to greater human trafficking of children, women, domestic workers and migrants without legal status.
That is the assessment of a Miami law professor and newly appointed member of Pope Francis’ Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, created in 2016 through the merger of four pontifical councils.
The dicastery is charged with developing and promoting the church’s teaching in the fields of justice, peace, the safeguarding of creation, as well as issues that concern health and works of charity. It now includes several COVID-19-related working groups.
“There is evidence of an increase in the commercial sexual exploitation of children, child work, girl-child marriages to alleviate families’ hardship, domestic servitude and sexual exploitation of women and children living in internally displaced person (IDP) camps, including camps in Haiti,” said professor Roza Pati, of St. Thomas University’s College of Law.
Pati is executive director of the university’s intercultural human rights program and founding director of the Miami-based John J. Brunetti Human Trafficking Academy.
Citing recent reports from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the United Nations and Polaris, a nongovernmental organization that operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, she noted the pandemic has set the stage for greater illegal activity related to human trafficking.
Read the full story by Tom Tracy on Angelus.
March 23, 2021
Sampson was issued a $300,000 cash bond and ordered to have no contact with victims, witnesses or codefendants, and to wear an electronic tether. Forgays was issued a $250,000 cash bond with the same conditions.
Human trafficking is a form of forced labor involving coercion, fraud or threats, usually to obtain commercial sex acts. Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald, who unseated the county’s incumbent prosecutor Jessica Cooper in last year’s Democratic primary, and was elected in November, said the arrests coincide with her department’s fresh targeting of human trafficking. McDonald spoke Tuesday at a news conference at her offices in Pontiac, joined by Madison Heights Police Chief Corey Haines.
“I am proud to have inaugurated the first-ever human trafficking unit within the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office as one of my very first acts in office,” McDonald said.
The new trafficking unit “will enable us to more nimbly confront the scourge of human trafficking within Oakland County, as this case demonstrates,” she said. Some may be shocked to learn that human trafficking occurs amid the affluence of Oakland County, McDonald added.
“Many people think human trafficking is something that only happens somewhere else. But let me be clear that this crime is happening right here in Oakland County. These are cases in which we have young women — girls as young as 9, we’ve found — being trafficked into prostitution. Children are being exploited in the worst way imaginable, by adults who trade their bodies for cash,” she said.
Read the full story by Bill Laitner on The Detroit Free Press
March 9, 2021
LONDON, Feb 2 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Human traffickers worldwide are increasingly targeting children and will likely exploit school closures during the coronavirus pandemic to abuse the young, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
Children make up a third of trafficking victims who are uncovered – a share that has tripled in the past 15 years, with girls mainly exploited for sex and boys forced into work, a report by the U.N. Office On Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found.
About 49,000 victims were detected and reported in total in 2018 – up from 24,000 in 2016 – according to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, which was based on research conducted before the start of the pandemic.
While worsening poverty and job losses spurred by COVID-19 have left millions of people globally at risk of trafficking, out-of-school children are especially vulnerable, UNODC said.
About 222 million schoolchildren – one in eight pupils – are affected by school closures, according to UNESCO, the U.N.’s cultural agency. The figure hit 1.6 billion in April last year.
“It is particularly alarming that in recent years more and more children are being targeted by traffickers,” UNODC Executive Director Ghada Waly said during a virtual briefing.
“Already targeted and potentially at risk, youth who are denied their right to education will particularly find themselves easier prey for traffickers,” she added.
Trafficking of children is more prevalent in poorer countries where it is linked to child labour, according to UNODC, which said young people are “easier to exploit” when communities are used to sending them to work away from home.
Read the full story by Kieran Guilbert on Thomas Reuters Foundation News.
January 29, 2021
ALBANY COUNTY, N.Y. (NewsNation Now) — People who dedicate their lives to helping victims of human trafficking and exploitation say it’s demanding work. Now, their mission has become even more difficult as misconceptions grow about what these crimes look like and who they impact.
Real and shocking stories of private islands and trafficked children have dominated recent headlines, along with viral internet conspiracy theories of a global faction of celebrity pedophiles. While all this goes on, human trafficking support agencies, like the Albany County Safe Harbour program in New York, say there are real examples of exploitation in our neighborhoods.
“We see it here in the Capital Region, in gangs,” said Nicole Consiglio, coordinator of Safe Harbour. “We also see parents trafficking their own children to feed a drug habit, or to pay their bills. It really does take on a lot of forms, and can happen anywhere at any time.”
Consiglio said both unproven conspiracies and large-scale Hollywood crimes can make parents unsuspecting of the commonplace dangers posed by traffickers.
“We don’t want that message to be lost in these stories that are out there to pull away and draw attention from what’s really going on here,” said Consiglio.
Viral internet theories have also muddied the messaging.
To read the full story by Giuliana Bruno on News Nation: Click Here
December 22, 2020
By Jennifer Reyes Lay, Executive Director of USCSAHT
We are just days away from Christmas and a little over a week from welcoming in the new year. As the Advent season draws to a close, and we prepare to celebrate the birth of God-with-us as the light begins to return little by little, we take pause to reflect on all this past year has held.
2020 has certainly been full of unexpected challenges and sorrows. The arrival of COVID-19 shut down business as usual and forced us to change many of the ways we went about our daily lives and work. We mourn with the families of the now more than 315,000 souls who have passed away due to COVID complications, and to all those who have lost employment and worry about providing for their families, paying the bills, and keeping a roof over their heads. This year has also shown us in these challenging times the power of community coming together to care for one another and protect the most vulnerable, even with an act as simple as wearing a mask. As the impacts of COVID-19 continue to be felt well into 2021, we remain committed to doing our part to advocate on behalf of the most vulnerable to prevent a rise in human trafficking and exploitation during these difficult times.
As a network of congregations, coalitions, churches, and individuals committed to ending human trafficking and supporting survivors, I am truly proud and humbled when I look back at all we’ve been able to accomplish this year despite the many challenges. The work reflected below could not have happened without your support and collaboration, and I look forward to continuing this work together in 2021!
Education and Prevention
We started the year strong with January as the National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention month, participating in various activities and communications to raise awareness about human trafficking. At the end of January, we were exhibitors and presenters at the Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington D.C., engaging hundreds of Catholics from around the country. Little did we know that would be our last in-person conference of the year! As cities began shutting down in early March, other national conferences and meetings we were planning to attend were canceled. However, by mid-year many groups had adapted to online platforms for their conferences and we were glad to be able to participate virtually in the LCWR national conference and the Ignatian Family Teach-In for Justice. With in-person gatherings cancelled and school classes moved online as well, we have adapted to virtual presentations and are grateful to have been able to meet with groups and students around the country teaching about human trafficking, prevention, and identification. Our working group, which includes both lay and religious members, has also been hard at work to review and update all of our current educational modules, and we created a new one focusing on sex trafficking of indigenous girls and women. We also hosted five educational webinars for our members throughout the year covering topics like advocacy, giving a human trafficking 101 presentation, an intro to the new website, human trafficking and indigenous communities, and socially responsible investing. We look forward to continuing this work in 2021 with new modules, new webinars, and even launching a children’s coloring book on the life of St. Josephine Bakhita which is in progress!
Advocacy
Thanks to the purchase of a new software system to manage our advocacy initiatives, we have had a great year of increasing engagement on a variety of advocacy initiatives focused on prevention and protection of vulnerable populations. We kicked off the year with a joint campaign for Lent with Catholics across the country, engaging Sysco Corporation to prevent slavery in their seafood supply chain. Thousands of members sent in postcards and we collected almost 1,000 signatures on our online petition. In collaboration with the education working group, we hosted a training webinar on advocacy for our members in March. As Congress debated COVID relief packages, we engaged over 400 supporters in contacting their senators about ensuring migrants and refugees were included in this much-needed support, and signed onto a joint letter about additional funding for survivor services during the pandemic. Hearing that children were at greater risk of online exploitation due to increased screen time and shifting trafficking trends during the pandemic we created an online petition to Attorney General Barr to enforce the Protect Our Children Act of 2008, collecting over 1,200 signatures. We also created a page on our website dedicated to information about keeping kids safe online and currently have an ongoing campaign to support the EARN IT Act which would help prevent online trafficking and exploitation.
Survivor Services
We were excited to start the year being able to support a survivor with an educational scholarship to successfully finish her Master’s degree, and are ending the year on a similar note having given out a second educational scholarship to support another amazing survivor pursuing her Master’s degree! This is thanks to your generous support of our survivor services fund. We were also able to meet some emergency survivor needs this year including covering legal fees and travel funds for a survivor returning to her home country. In collaboration with the Hilton Foundation, we were able to meet some emergency funding needs of survivor shelters and organizations run by our members to provide additional support during the pandemic. This allowed houses to adapt to online learning for the women living there, cover additional food and utilities costs with everyone at home, assist with temporary housing costs, and provide health and safety products to women on the street. We also had a productive year internally as our survivor services group worked on the development of mentorship program guidelines, established core values of our survivor services work, updated the resources available on our website, and strengthened connections to member-run shelters.
Communications
With more people than ever relying on electronic resources and communications during the pandemic, we were proud to be able to launch a new, updated website in July 2020. This website has brought in more views than ever (over 3,000 visits per month!) with people able to easily access accurate and current information about human trafficking and get involved in one of our current campaigns. The new website also includes special portals for members and for our survivor services working group to improve collaboration and access to important information. One important resource shared through our website is the monthly Stop Trafficking Newsletter, which underwent a successful transition to a new editing and design team at the beginning of 2020, providing the same great information with a new, modern look. This year we also grew our presence and messaging through social media, introducing new daily hashtags to highlight our members, share facts about human trafficking, offer inspiring quotes to encourage us in our work, and highlight the voices and stories of survivors. If you aren’t already following us, be sure to connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube! We’ve also grown our mailing list to include almost 2,000 supporters interested in staying involved and taking action to end human trafficking. We are excited in 2021 to launch a new USCSAHT brochure, a downloadable monthly calendar highlighting anti-trafficking days and resources, and a Spanish version of our current website!
Talitha Kum
Even though the pandemic has kept us from being able to gather in person across borders, technology has allowed us to maintain strong ties to our sister networks across the globe through Talitha Kum. We are grateful for the leadership of Sr. Ann Oestreich, USCSAHT Board President, who represents the Northern Hemisphere networks on the International Coordinating Committee of Talitha Kum. Talitha Kum leaders this past year have given many online presentations, highlighting the work of Catholic sisters and challenges during the pandemic, and continuing to inspire hope in difficult times. Through Talitha Kum connections we were also able to help a survivor of trafficking successfully return to her home country in West Africa, and provide free art therapy to survivors in New York. In the Western Hemisphere we continue to share events and resources to prevent trafficking, and recently completed a joint campaign for the 16 days of action against gender-based violence, highlighting the reality of human trafficking and violence against women in each of our network countries over the 16 days. We are gearing up for the February 8thDay of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking which will involve a day-long prayer marathon hosted by Talitha Kum networks all over the world, including U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking. The theme this coming year is “An Economy without Human Trafficking,” and you can help participate by downloading this sign, writing in your message, and sharing on social media.
Operations
This year has also included ongoing capacity building and strengthening of the organization. We are proud that our work has attracted new members to join us in realizing a world without slavery, and that our improved website and database systems have made that easier than ever. We are grateful to all our members who collaborated in a capacity assessment survey to improve and strengthen our work together in the coming years. We continue to build strategic partnerships with other anti-trafficking organizations, recognizing and valuing our collective power together. As a young and growing organization, we were thrilled to be able to welcome a second staff person to the team in March of 2020 – Rebecca Guzman who serves as our Development Coordinator. We are also excited that in 2021 we will continue to grow our team as a search for a full-time Program Coordinator is currently underway.
Overall, we are so proud of what we have been able to accomplish together in 2020 and look forward to all that 2021 will bring. Despite the challenges of this past year, our donors and supports have remained strong in their commitment to fighting human trafficking and supporting survivors. We are so grateful for all you have shared with us this past year and appreciate your ongoing support into 2021. If you would like to make a final year-end donation to support our continued work in 2021, you can do so easily HERE.
On behalf of all those at U.S. Catholic Sisters Against Human Trafficking, I wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas and a happy New Year! May 2021 bring some much-needed relief to all who are suffering, and may our message and vision of a world without slavery touch even more hearts to join in this work together!
