UN LAUNCHES FUND TO ASSIST SLAVERY SURVIVORS
UN Announces “Global Plan of Action Against Trafficking in Persons.” Ten years ago, the UN General Assembly first officially recognized the need to combat human trafficking by implementing the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
The new Action Plan will expand on this protocol by creating a United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund—money set aside to help NGOs and government agencies protect and rehabilitate survivors of modern day slavery. “After they have been exploited and abused, [survivors of human trafficking] should not be punished, too,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his announcement yesterday. Read his entire statement here.
China’s Human Trafficking Stats
IN CHINA HUMAN TRAFFICKING CONVICTIONS ON THE RISE
“Xue Shulan, a judge in the SPC, attributed the rising number of human trafficking cases to the demand of a large market, especially in rural areas where people who have a preference for males are willing to spend a lot of money to buy a boy.
About 30,000 to 60,000 children are reported missing every year in China, but it is difficult to estimate how many are actually cases of human trafficking, the Ministry of Public Security said.” Read more on this report fro Economic Daily here.
UK ‘OPTS OUT’ OF EU HUMAN TRAFFICKING DIRECTIVE
From Press TV: “Amnesty International UK spokeswoman Lucy Wake called the opt-out ‘alarming’ at a time when Britain’s own efforts to stop human trafficking were failing.
She argued for ‘an independent anti-trafficking watchdog—something that the directive specifically calls for.
‘Trafficking is a serious international crime and we need coordinated international measures to tackle it, not opt-outs and piecemeal responses.’
The Home Office defended its decision, claiming: ‘By not opting in now but reviewing our position when the directive is agreed, we can avoid measures that are against our interests.'” Read the Guardian’s coverage here.
SPAIN BREAKS UP MALE SEX TRAFFICKING NETWORK
From the New York Times: “The police said 14 people, almost all of them Brazilian, were arrested over recent weeks as part of an inquiry into the network’s activities begun in February.
…The police estimated that between 60 and 80 men were brought to Spain by the network, most of them in their 20s and originating from Brazil’s northern state of Maranhão. They reached Spain by passing through third countries.
The network covered the whole of Spain, with the sex workers placed in, and then switched regularly between, apartments whose landlords received half of the money earned by them, as well as €200, or about $255, to cover food and lodging, officials said.”
FIJI TO CREATE NATIONAL ACTION PLAN AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS
From the Fiji Times: “Human trafficking is a global phenomenon and its symptoms have now been identified domestically and also at our borders, says Immigration Director Major Nemani Vuniwaqa. He said human trafficking was new to the citizens of Fiji.”