Police probe at least 54 more evil child sex grooming gangs

19 May 2013 00:00

Officers are preparing to bust the biggest paedophile network ever seen in the country, with police set to swoop within days

 

Alamy

At least 54 evil child ­grooming gangs are being investigated by police.

It comes as officers in the North of England are preparing to bust the biggest paedophile network ever seen in the country, with police set to swoop within days.

Our disturbing figures can be revealed after reporters contacted every force across England and Wales, but the true number is likely to be much higher as many failed, or ­refused, to reply.

Child exploitation came into focus this week when seven paedophiles were convicted of sexually torturing girls as young as 11 in Oxford.

Thames Valley Police missed several opportunities to rescue the girls from the abuse over six years. 

The same force has now revealed it is  investigating 14 more networks – with some gangs even using women to help groom the youngsters.

Chief constable Sara Thornton said: “We are looking at double figures for the number of suspects.”

She went on: “I think the vast majority are men but there are a couple of women who might have been facilitating exploitation.”

As a result of our inquiries, police chiefs admitted to at least 54 investigations.

Out of 43 forces in England and Wales, 31 responded to our request for information.

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Sunday Mirror

Seventeen said they had ongoing probes, including Merseyside, which would only say it was investigating a “number” of grooming rings.

Three – Staffordshire, Norfolk and Humberside – refused to tell us how many investigations they had, and 12 did not get back to us.

At 14, Thames Valley has the largest number of probes, followed by six in Lancashire – where one of the worst paedophile gangs was caught in Rochdale last year.

Nottinghamshire and Greater Manchester said they were looking into five alleged sex cells each.

Steve Heywood, chief constable at Greater Manchester, admitted child exploitation was now the force’s “number one priority”.

The Met Police in ­London said its officers were probing four gangs.

Three probes are active in South Yorkshire, Northants and Suffolk.

There are two each in Surrey, Northumbria and West Yorkshire. South Wales, Kent, West Mercia, Devon and Cornwall and Cambridgeshire each have one investigation.

Staffordshire, Humberside and ­Norfolk would not say how many investigations they had.

West ­Midlands, Sussex, Wiltshire, North Yorkshire, Leicestershire, Hampshire, Avon and Somerset, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Cleveland, Dorset and ­Dyfed Powys did not reply

There are no investigations in Derbyshire, Warwickshire, North Wales, Hertfordshire, Gwent, ­Cumbria, Durham, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, Bedfordshire, Essex.

The figures come as 10 men are preparing to stand trial this week accused of exploiting a girl over a four-year period in High Wycombe, Bucks.

All deny the charges.

Last month we revealed six men were held in Peterborough, Cambs, in a new case with potentially the biggest number of victims by one gang.

It is one in a worrying string of already known child sex cases.

Earlier this year seven men were charged in Newham, East London, for allegedly raping a vulnerable girl who was under 16.

And five men were charged with rape in Stockport, Greater Manchester, last year after a probe showed they had 39 potential victims.

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Elizabeth Cook / PA

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Paedophile ring in Oxford

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Top UN Officials Call For Full Implementation Of Key Anti-human Trafficking Treaties

Top UN Officials Call For Full Implementation Of Key Anti-human Trafficking Treaties

UNITED NATIONS, May 14 (Bernama) -- Leading officials of the United Nations Monday urged the UN General Assembly to ensure the "full implementation" of the major anti-human trafficking treaties, and to cooperate closely in a bid to counter the US$32 billion industry in which some 2.4 million people are languishing in forced labour and domestic exploitation, sexual work and child soldiers.

The General Assembly's president Vuk Jeremic, addressing the opening of the two-day high level conference aimed at improving coordination of efforts against trafficking in human beings, emphasized that "no effort must be spared" to stop the servitude of millions of people and help the victims rebuild their lives.

He called for increased vigilance and sensitizing to the needs of the victims in joint coordination of efforts by law enforcement officials, border control officials, labour inspectors, consular and embassy officials, judges and prosecutors, and peacekeepers.

The meetings provided the participating countries an opportunity to examine the progress achieved on the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons.

The Plan, which was adopted in 2010, calls for integrating the fight against human trafficking in the United Nations' broader programmes aimed at increasing development and security worldwide.

The four broad themes for discussions include preventing trafficking, prosecuting offenders, protecting victims and forming partnerships to fight trafficking.

The Plan also set up the UN Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.

Jeremic appealed to the member countries and philanthropic organisations for greater support for the trust fund which had been created by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

A report released in December 2012 by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) suggests that almost a third of all victims of human trafficking officially identified worldwide between 2007 and 2012 were children.

-- BERNAMA

A Lost Generation

A Lost Generation: Young SyrianRefugees Struggle to Survive

About 120,000 Syrians are calling the tents and trailers of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan home for the foreseeable future.
See photos, videos and satellite photos of the camp »

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Syrian refugees at the Zaatari refugee camp collected bread at a distribution center administered by the World Food Program.

By JODI RUDOREN

Published: May 8, 2013 38 Comments

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SABHA, Jordan — The parents were petrified the oldest of their seven children would be drafted into the Syrian Army. For their teenage girl, they feared rape and kidnapping. And the next oldest, verging on adolescence, had begun rabble-rousing at school and in the street against the government.

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So in September 2011, six months into the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the parents sent the three children — then 15, 13 and 11 — away from home in Hama Province with about $425 and a tent sewed out of Chinese rice sacks. The children have lived on their own in Jordan ever since. The eldest, now 17, picks vegetables for $8.50 a day when he can; the girl has learned to cook; the younger boy kicks a ball or plays cards. He has no actual cards, so he made his own, writing numbers on scraps of paper.

“I used to just be a child — now I’m the head of the house,” said the 17-year-old, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified to protect his family in Syria. “I need a budget and to manage my money. I never thought of that before.”

As the Syrian civil war rages into its third year, nearly one-third of the population of 22 million inside Syria needs humanitarian help, and 1.4 million have fled their homeland altogether. Of about 500,000 seeking shelter in Jordan, about 55 percent are under 18. Their troubles and challenges — years out of school, trauma from having witnessed the killing of relatives, sexual abuse — mirror those of their peers struggling to survive in tents and hideaways in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria’s own shattered communities.

These children, the next lost generation, make up a particularly troubling category of collateral damage from Syria’s chaotic conflict, which has left 70,000 people dead. There is Ahmad Ojan, 14, who wanted to be a teacher, but now spends his days peddling tea in Jordan’s sprawling Zaatari refugee camp. And there is Marwa Hutaba, 15, who still hopes to be a pharmacist, but is increasingly worried she might be married off to a wealthy foreigner — like the 14-year-old who disappeared from school after “getting engaged one day and married the next.”

“When you talk to them about the future,” said Carolyn Miles, chief executive of Save the Children, “they can’t see beyond, frankly, the next day.”

Children have been streaming across Syria’s borders for more than two years, thousands of them separated from their families. Even those accompanied by their parents arrive traumatized: a recent study by a Turkish university found that three out of four Syrian youngsters had lost a loved one in the fighting.

Before the war, more than 90 percent of Syrian children were enrolled in school; in Jordan about one in three of the refugees ages 6 to 14 attend class. The rest are left to learn the life of an exile, where guile and aggression matter more than books and tests. Where there is little to look forward to, only now.

In Zaatari, children dodge tear gas at near-daily demonstrations. They shake down water tankers to get their buckets filled first. They throw stones at aid workers. Gangs have formed, looting doors and windows from trailers and busting through fences.

“Nine-year-olds are coming to the swings armed: that’s a serious issue that we have to deal with every day,” said Jane MacPhail, Unicef’s coordinator for Jordan’s camps. “Your brain changes. Your ability to assess risk goes. What we have to do is reconnect these kids’ neuropathways to their emotional brain. Otherwise we’re going to lose this generation.”

This small desert nation of six million opened its doors to the newcomers but was quickly overwhelmed as they gobbled up jobs, taxed scarce water resources and forced schools into double shifts. About two-thirds of the refugees are squatting in Jordanian cities and villages, but the pathos and problems are most profound in Zaatari, where families live in row after mind-numbing row of tents or trailers, each day an endless cycle of finding food and water, clearing dust and debris, waiting in lines. The camp opened last July and now sprawls across five square miles, costs $1 million a day to run and has a population of perhaps 120,000 — by far the region’s largest hub of refugees.

It is a vast jungle of humanity, and disorder. Electricity is pirated. Rations are brazenly bought and resold right outside distribution centers. Riots break out many mornings at three sites where the World Food Program hands out half a million pieces of pita, as boys scale barbed-wire fences to skirt the lines.

It is home, school, play — life — for these displaced children of Syria.

Ahmad Ojan, 14, whose father died a decade ago, arrived with his mother and several siblings three months ago from Dara’a. Each morning, just after 6, he heads to the bread line with a thermos of hot tea, which he sells for 15 cents a cup.

“Chai b’hayl,” tea with cardamom, he calls in a slightly mournful wail. A few other boys pass with similar thermoses. An old man has one, too.

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Ranya Kadri, Lynsey Addario and Tamir Elterman contributed reporting from Jordan.

A version of this article appeared in print on May 9, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Lost Generation: Young Syrian Refugees Struggle to Survive.

Your tomato’s possible ties to slavery

April 21st, 2011

09:57 AM ET

Your tomato’s possible ties to 

slavery

By Amanda Kloer, Special to CNN

Editor's Note: Amanda Kloer is an editor with Change.org, where she organizes and promotes campaigns to end human trafficking. She has created numerous reports, documentaries and training materials on human trafficking in the United States and around the world. Here, she examines the work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a group that represents around 4,000 farm workers in Florida. In November the group partnered with Florida Tomato Growers Exchange – a trade association that represents the majority of Florida’s tomato farmers – to create a code of conduct which includes a zero tolerance policy on forced and child labor for farm workers. The code covers about 90% of the Florida tomato industry, and is in effect beginning with the 2011 – 2012 season.

Antonio Martinez stood in the hot sun, exhausted from a cross-country journey, and waited. Just 21 years old, he had traveled from Mexico to the U.S. with the promise of a well-paid construction job in California. But now he stood in a field in central Florida, listening to one man pay another man $500 to own him.

“I realized I had been sold like an animal without any compassion," Antonio thought at the time, more than 10 years ago.

He was right. In modern times, in the United States, Antonio had been sold into slavery in Florida's tomato fields.

Antonio is not alone
Unfortunately, Antonio’s case is not an isolated one. Many enslaved farmworkers in Florida pick the tomatoes that end up on sliced onto sandwiches, mixed into salads and stacked on supermarket shelves across the country. Over the last decade, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, an award-winning farmworker advocacy organization, has identified more than 1,200 victims of human trafficking picking produce in Florida's fields.

These slaves often work for 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week. They are kept in crampt and dirty trailers, constantly monitored, and have wages garnished to pay a debt invented by the trafficker to keep victims enslaved. Many victims face threats to themselves or their families, regular beatings, sexual harassment and rape. They can't leave, can't seek help. They are in every way trapped.

Cases of full-blown slavery like Antonio survived are extreme. But the U.S. Justice Department has prosecuted at least seven cases of farm labor servitude in Florida in the last 15 years.

Exploitation in the tomato industry isn't just the work of a handful of immoral individuals – it's the result of a supply chain which is set up to support the exploitation of the very people who keep it running.

Slavery’s connections to products you buy
Tomato pickers in Florida are paid less than two pennies for each pound of tomatoes they pick. That's the same pound you buy at the grocery store for anywhere between $1.50 and $4.00, depending on location and season. It's a poverty-inducing wage that has diminished in real value since the 1970s, even as the retail price of tomatoes has increased.

Here's what happens in the supply chain: major corporate buyers such as supermarkets, fast food chains and food service companies regularly purchase a massive amount of produce. Their huge purchases allow these companies to leverage their buying power and demand the lowest possible prices from tomato growers. This, in turn, exerts a powerful downward pressure on wages and working conditions in tomato suppliers' operations.

The result of this dynamic is thousands of workers like Antonio was – exploited, enslaved or held in debt bondage so growers can eek out a few more pennies and meet the major companies' bargain basement expectations. It's a dynamic that has existed for decades. But over the past few years, one grassroots organization has started to challenge the big buyers. And they're winning.

The Campaign for Fair Food
To help fight the rampant human trafficking and other injustices in the tomato industry, The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) launched the Campaign for Fair Food in 2001. Their goal is to reverse the trend that exploits workers by harnessing the purchasing power of the food industry for the betterment of farmworker wages and working conditions. Over the past decade, they've made major headway.

CIW has succeeded in getting Taco Bell, McDonald's, Subway and Burger King to support raising farmworker wages by a penny-per-pound and implementing protections against human trafficking, sexual harassment, and other forms of exploitation. They've also convinced major food service companies, including Aramark and Sodexo, as well as the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, the largest tomato grower organization in Florida, to do the same. Now, they’re turning their attention to supermarkets (Whole Foods has supported CIW since 2008.)

How you can help
Modern-day slavery can be conquered. Antonio did it four months after he was originally sold in the 1990s. When his crewleader fell asleep, Antonio made a run for it and escaped the farm. Despite the fact that his traffickers continued to follow and threaten him, Antonio testified against his captors and sent them to prison. He now works with CIW as an activist so others do not have to experience what he did.

You can help ensure that no other workers suffer from the exploitation and slavery Antonio suffered by informing yourself about the supply chain. You can write your local supermarket manager to let them know you support efforts to end modern-day slavery in the fields. CIW's website has a sample letter and other resources. You can trace some products on Anti-Slavery International’s interactive map. You can find ways to take action at Change.org. And here are even more ways to help compiled by CNN.

By holding businesses accountable, every person who shops or eats can help ensure stories like Antonio's are relegated to the history books, where slavery in America belongs.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Amanda Kloer.

Post by:Amanda Kloer - Special to CNN

Topics: Life In Slavery

Call on the Indian Parliament to abolish child slavery in India

The following sponsored message from Walk Free has been sent to you via Mother Jones.

Dear Friend, Every day, millions of children in India wake up to long hours of back-breaking labour, working everywhere from stone quarries to carpet factories to rice mills. These children—some as young as as 5 years-old—are kept from school and forced to work 7 days a week for up to 18 hours a day in hazardous situations that leave them permanently injured or crippled by heavy loads and dangerous equipment. Due to these working conditions, many child labourers suffer from respiratory disorders or develop chronic pain. Thankfully, the Indian Parliament is considering legislation called the "Child and Adolescent Labour Abolition Bill," which: 1) prohibits employment of children under 14 years of age, 2) outlines harsh sentences for violators, and 3) provides for monitoring of suspected cases of child slavery. This legislation would put an end to the enslavement of children in India, but it risks not passing without a demonstration of mass public support. In two days (on May 9, 2013), anti-slavery organisations in India will formally present evidence of national consensus to end child slavery in India. And at that time, they will also report on how many people around the world have signed on in support. We're SO CLOSE to one million signatures (all combined we have 890,000), and we're reaching out to anti-slavery activists today to help get us over the top—can we count on your support? Call on the Indian Parliament to abolish child slavery in India by immediately passing the "Child and Adolescent Labour Abolition Bill:" http://www.walkfree.org/indiachildslaverypetition Sadly, the Indian Parliament missed their opportunity to pass the "Child and Adolescent Labour Abolition Bill" in late 2012. With the fate of millions of children at stake, it is appalling that politicians in India have delayed the passage of a bill that would abolish child slavery in their country. For every day that this bill is delayed, millions of children in India will continue to be trapped in the nightmare of modern slavery. While leaders in India remain inactive, an entire generation remains at risk of being bought and sold to work in unimaginable conditions of sex slavery, bonded labour and domestic servitude. By keeping this crucial bill off the agenda, the Indian Parliament is allowing modern slavery to continue to rob children of the chance to be healthy, educated and free to build a bright future for themselves and for their country. The Parliament of India will begin the first session of the year in the third week of February. They need to know that any further delay in the passage of this historic law banning child labour in their country is simply unacceptable. Child rights groups in India and the rest of the world are already calling on the government of India to prioritise the "Child and Adolescent Labour Abolition Bill," but we need your help to build massive public pressure that leaders in India cannot ignore. Take action now: Tell Indian politicians to pass the "Child and Adolescent Labour Abolition Bill" when Parliament resumes: http://www.walkfree.org/indiachildslaverypetition Because these children are often left illiterate and plagued with health problems, they are—in a cruel twist of fate—less likely to find employment once they reach adulthood. This continued enslavement of children traps generations of Indians in a vicious cycle of slavery, illiteracy and poverty. We can end child slavery in India. After you take action, will you take a moment to forward this email to your friends and family to make sure that as many people as possible join us in pressuring the Indian Parliament to protect millions of children from modern slavery? Thank you in advance for your help. Thank you, Debra, Nick, Jacqui, Jessica, Hayley, Jess, Mich, Amy and the Walk Free Team P.S. Stay up to date with the latest information on the movement to end#modernslavery: https://twitter.com/walkfree

TELL TARGET TO STOP SUPPORTING SLAVERY IN UZBEKISTAN

EXPECT MORE: TELL TARGET TO 

STOP SUPPORTING SLAVERY IN 

UZBEKISTAN

Target Corporation (Target)^[1] often offers prices that seem too good to be true - how do they keep their prices so low? Turns out some of Target’s products might be so cheap because they are made with slave-picked cotton from Uzbekistan and/or purchased from Daewoo International, a company that accounts for approximately 20% of all cotton processed in Uzbekistan.

Every year, during the harvest season, over a million children and adults – including teachers, nurses and doctors – are ripped out of their homes, schools and jobs, and forced to work in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan to meet daily picking quotas. They are often threatened and beaten, as in the case of 18-year-old Navruz Muyzinov who was reported to have been beaten to death by police officers when he left his assigned cotton field before meeting his quota during the 2012 cotton harvest.

Over 100 apparel companies (including Target) from all over the world have taken a stand against slavery in Uzbekistan, pledging to not buy slave-picked Uzbek cotton in an effort to push the Uzbek government to end the enslavement of its people. Now, they’re being called upon to follow up on their pledge by joining the Daewoo Protocol, declining to do business with Daewoo until it takes serious steps to stop sourcing slave-picked Uzbek cotton.

We expect more from Target, a company that takes pride in holding the highest ethical standards for itself and for its business partners. So we called and asked them to join the Daewoo Protocol. Target said they didn't need to sign the Daewoo Protocol because they have a “No Uzbek Cotton” policy. But such a policy only works if you're willing to enforce it.

If Target is truly serious about keeping slavery out of its stores, it needs to stop doing business with Daewoo by agreeing to implement the Daewoo Protocol – a series of steps companies need to take to eliminate slave-picked cotton from their supply chains.

Tell Target to sign the Daewoo Protocol, a serious step toward fighting modern slavery in Uzbekistan.

---

^[1] All mentions of “Target” and “Target Corporation” refer to the Target Corporation of 1000 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis, MN 55403.

Somaly Mam: Fighting Sex Trafficking in Cambodia

Submitted by jvanmaren on April 12, 2013 - 11:52am 

• AFESIP
 
• Alanna Gomez
 
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• Cambodia
 
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• Somaly Mam
 
• Somaly Mam Foundation

by Alanna Gomez

Somaly Mam is a dedicated, courageous, beautiful woman. She is invited to speak on television, at conferences, has been featured in documentaries and receives awards from around the world. Born into a small tribe in rural Cambodia, she has survived extreme poverty, sexual slavery, death threats, and much violence. Despite this, Somaly founded AFESIP (Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire) in Cambodia in 1996, and then the Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007. Both organizations are dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating girls who have been forced into sexual slavery, some from the age of only 3 years old.

Cambodia has a shocking rate of young girls trafficked into prostitution, driven by the destruction a deadly genocide and war left on this South Asian country, nestled between Vietnam and Thailand. Soldiers with guns take what they want and peacekeepers buy what they want. Sex tourists from around the world flock to the country with a ceaseless appetite for young, cheap girls. As a result, younger and younger girls are being trafficked. Desperately poor families frequently sell their daughters into brothels.

Somaly was sold by her family at 10 or 11 years old. The man who bought her used her as child labour, and soon raped her. He used her as a sex slave and then sold her to a brothel. She was viciously beaten and forced to take many, many ‘clients.’ Somaly says that while she is soft, she is also very strong. “You can beat me until blood comes out of my skin, [if] I don’t want something, [then] I don’t want it.” When she refused to take clients, she was beaten again. She was forced to see her best friend murdered in front of her by the brothel owner.

She eventually escaped and fled to another country. However, it didn’t take long for her to come back for the girls she left behind.  She explains, “The girls and me, we are the same because we have the same life. I am them, they are me…I help them, but they help me too.”

“My dream is to see my girls become me, helping the victims of sex slavery.” Most of the girls do indeed want to be just like her. They help with her work, educate people, visit girls in brothels, share their stories and sometimes assist in raids on brothels, comforting the girls who are being rescued.

One of these girls, Samana, was sold when she was 13. A family friend had offered her a job in the capital city, Phnom Penh. When she arrived in the city, she was sold to a woman who operated a brothel. They locked her in a basement for a week. When she refused to take ‘clients’, they beat her, starved her, and electrocuted her. She had to see 10-30 men a day. When she got pregnant, she tells how they aborted her baby. “It was painful, there was lots of blood.” One day, the brothel owner stabbed her in the eye. Instead of getting medical help, she had to continue working. Police found out, raided the brothel and took her to get help. Now, Samana says “I am not angry. I’ll stand taller to help other girls.”

There is pain, visible pain in the lives of these young girls, but there is also love and affection. To her great credit, Somaly is able to help these girls receive affection again, from each other and from her. This affection is very healing. Somaly wants her girls to be children again, to wipe off their make-up and to make them laugh. She is often very goofy when interacting with the girls. There are several of her centers around the country and her rehabilitation program focuses on helping the girls be confident, and Cambodian. They receive an education but also do things that regular Cambodian children do, like fish, hunt for crabs and learn traditional dances.

It can be hard for the girls to put their experiences into words, so they create songs out of their stories. The girls know each other’s songs and sing them together. Somaly wants to show the world that these girls have a great dignity. She leads them with her heroism and grace, turning them into remarkable young women. Unfortunately, most of the girls are rejected by their families and society, even after being rescued.

There is a taboo against the victims of sexual slavery speaking out. Somaly shatters those taboos, giving a voice to the voiceless victims. One of her most ingenious ideas is her radio show, which gives the girls a place to speak boldly and bluntly before a wide audience about their terrible victimization, enlightening people in Cambodia of the unspeakable suffering inflicted upon these girls.

The raids themselves are very dangerous. Often the military and local police are complicit in the sex trade, so Somaly relies on the anti-trafficking police. She goes undercover into brothels and documents underage girls being held there. With the documentation complete and a report filed, the raid can get underway. The raids are often very dangerous, and the brothels can be heavily protected. If a raid is successful, Somaly can still face retribution, as the traffickers do not like having their income stolen away.

Somaly is inspiring because she continues to do what she can each day. She takes each step, helps each girl, and loves each one. She has observed that “sometimes people want to do so much and they do nothing. I can’t help you, I cannot [they say]. Everyone can help. Everyone can do one thing. Start with your heart, what it wants.”

Even though it is difficult to see a solution to this heart-wrenching situation, Somaly keeps going. She has created a little army of young women, who are becoming real voices of change. She insists “We are going to change Cambodia. We want you to hear from us; if you don’t listen to us, we’ll keep on talking, we’re not tired at all.”