Free Republic

Local law enforcement agencies and social service organizations observing the inaugural National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness on Friday called for increased public cooperation to combat what has been widely labeled modern-day slavery. A U.S. Senate resolution last year made Jan. 11 a day to recall its victims. Members of the South Texas Human Trafficking Coalition said much work remains to be done. The coalition includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, which made 520 arrests for forced sexual or workforce exploitation resulting in 281 convictions nationwide in the past three years. "ICE joins in this resolution to bring...

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has asked the Mexican government to enact legislation to criminalize the construction or financing of border tunnels between the United States and Mexico. In letters to Mexican President Vicente Fox and members of the Mexican Congress, the senators -- led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat -- said 40 tunnels into the United States have been discovered since 2001 and urged the Mexican officials to enact legislation to crack down on those involved. "Our countries must continue to work together to address this problem by discovering and shutting down those who build, finance or...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia Sex trafficking at its worst is the slavery of the 21st century, yet it has become one of the world's growth industries. To understand how brazen it is, step up to the second floor of the Chai Hour II Hotel here in the Cambodian capital. It's like an aquarium: beyond a glass wall are dozens of teenage girls in skimpy white outfits, each with a number. The customer orders a girl by number, and the manager delivers her a moment later to a private room. A Cambodian police report in my hands describes the Chai Hour II...

(CNSNews.com) - The sight of rival gangs shooting at each other is hardly unique in America, but when the cargo prompting the gun battle is a group of illegal aliens being smuggled from Mexico into the U.S., the news provides momentum for an Arizona congressman trying to convince colleagues of the need for immigration reform. Four people were killed and five wounded in this week's gun battle that closed much of Interstate 10 in the heart of Phoenix. Three others were hurt in a traffic accident caused by the shooting, according to investigators. Pinal County Sheriff Roger Vanderpool, working...

<p>Colin Powell wants to do something about Castro's reliance on prostitution.</p> <p>Fidel Castro has a nasty sex problem. And he's livid at Colin Powell for exposing it to the world. "Despicable," "rude," "cynical" and "repugnant" are only a few of the words Fidel used during a recent tirade.</p>

Cheers, tears as prostitution bill passes 26 June 2003 Parliament erupted in cheers last night, as a landmark law to decriminalise prostitution passed by a single vote. Christchurch MP Tim Barnett's Prostitution Reform Act will become law next Monday and soliciting for sex and brothelkeeping will no longer be illegal in New Zealand from that day. In one of the closest votes in Parliament's history, the Act passed 60-59, on the abstention of Labour's Muslim MP Ashraf Choudhary. Had Mr Choudhary, who opposed the bill, not abstained the bill would have fallen because a 60-60 tie is counted as a...

Albanian connection to the teenage sex slaves in London By Jason Bennetto Crime Correspondent 19 June 2003 The Romanian girl was 15 when she was smuggled into Britain. She arrived in Dover, via Brussels and Ostend, on a hovercraft in July 2001 and was met at Victoria station and taken to a flat in north-west London. A day later, a man named Mustapha Kadiu, 31, arrived and made the girl, later known in court as Miss X, phone saunas and massage parlours to work as a prostitute. Kadiu, an Albanian who persuaded her to travel to Britain to start a...

Saratov's human rights commissioner urged skeptical State Duma deputies Tuesday to follow his region's lead in decriminalizing prostitution, arguing that regulating the country's growing sex trade would help crack down on disease and delinquency. The governor of the southern Saratov region, Dmitry Ayatskov, has given prostitution de facto legal status and hopes to further regulate the world's oldest profession to cut down on sexually transmitted disease and tuberculosis in the region, human rights commissioner Alexander Lando said. "This is about the health of the nation," he told reporters. Lando has helped draft a bill on legalizing prostitution that would oblige...