[nyfoil-l] 4/3:UN Report-2.4M People Across The Globe Are Trafficked 4 Labor/Sex in Anytime

[SIUHIN at aol.com]

Human Trafficking Victims: 2.4  Million People Across The Globe Are 
Trafficked For Labor, Sex 
 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/human-trafficking-victims_n_1401673.html?view=print&comm_ref=false)  
By EDITH M.  LEDERER 04/3/2012   
_http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/human-trafficking-victims_n_140167
3.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D149161_
 
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/03/human-trafficking-victims_n_1401673.html?icid=maing-grid10|htmlws-main-bb|dl1|sec1_lnk3&pLid=149161)  
UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. crime-fighting office said Tuesday that 2.4  
million people across the globe are victims of human trafficking at any one  
time, and 80 percent of them are being exploited as sexual slaves. 
Yuri Fedotov, the head of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, told a 
daylong  General Assembly meeting on trafficking that 17 percent are trafficked to 
 perform forced labor, including in homes and sweat shops. 
He said $32 billion is being earned every year by unscrupulous criminals  
running human trafficking networks, and two out of every three victims are  
women. 
Fighting these criminals "is a challenge of extraordinary proportions,"  
Fedotov said. 
"At any one time, 2.4 million people suffer the misery of this humiliating  
and degrading crime," he said. 
According to Fedotov's Vienna-based office, only one out of 100 victims of  
trafficking is ever rescued. 
Fedotov called for coordinated local, regional and international responses  
that balance "progressive and proactive law enforcement" with actions that  
combat "the market forces driving human trafficking in many destination  
countries." 
Michelle Bachelet, who heads the new U.N. agency promoting women's rights 
and  gender equality called UN Women, said "it's difficult to think of a 
crime more  hideous and shocking than human trafficking. Yet, it is one of the 
fastest  growing and lucrative crimes." 
Actress Mira Sorvino, the U.N. goodwill ambassador against human 
trafficking,  told the meeting that "modern day slavery is bested only by the illegal 
drug  trade for profitability," but very little money and political will is 
being  spent to combat trafficking. 
"Transnational organized crime groups are adding humans to their product  
lists," she said. "Satellites reveal the same routes moving them as arms and  
drugs." 
Sorvino said there is a lack of strong legislation and police training to  
combat trafficking. Even in the United States "only 10 percent of police  
stations have any protocol to deal with trafficking," she said. 
M. Cherif Bassiouni, an emeritus law professor at DePaul University in  
Chicago, said to applause that "there is no human rights subject on which  
governments have said so much but done so little." 
Laws in most of the world criminalize prostitutes and other victims of  
trafficking but almost never criminalize the perpetrators "without whom that  
crime could not be performed," he said. 
Bassiouni said the figure of 2.4 million people trafficked at any time is 
not  reflective of the overall problem because "at the end of 10 years you 
will have  a significantly larger number who have gone through the 
experience." 
He urged a global reassessment of "who is a victim and who is a criminal" 
and  called for criminalizing not only those on the demand side using 
trafficked  women, children and men, but all those in the chain of supplying 
trafficking  victims. 
In addition, Bassiouni said, "we must change attitudes of male-dominated  
police departments throughout the world who place this type of a crime at the 
 lowest level of their law enforcement priorities." 
General Assembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser and Secretary-General 
 Ban Ki-moon urged donors to contribute to a new trust fund aimed at 
helping  victims of human trafficking. 
At the start of the meeting, Fedotov said the U.N. Voluntary Trust Fund for 
 Victims of Trafficking had pledges of around $1 million but just $47,000 
in  contributions, and he urged those who offered money to send their checks. 
At the end of the meeting, Al-Nasser announced three new pledges – $200,000 
 from Australia, $30,000 from Russia, and 30,000 Euros from Luxembourg – 
and  encouraged other U.N. member states to follow their example. 



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