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http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2004/July/04_ag_489.htm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JULY 16, 2004
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

AG
202-514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888

BUSH ADMINISTRATION HOSTS FIRST NATIONAL TRAINING CONFERENCE TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING

President George W. Bush And Attorney General John Ashcroft Address Conference

TAMPA - Today, President Bush joined Attorney General Ashcroft and other senior Bush Administration officials at the first-ever national training conference on human trafficking: Human Trafficking into the United States: Rescuing Women and Children from Slavery. Hosted by the Justice Department, the conference brought together over 500 attendees, comprised of the hundreds of state, local and federal officials who work together to combat human trafficking in communities across America. Trafficking in persons, a modern day form of slavery, is a serious problem in the United States and throughout the world. Each year, an estimated 600,000-800,000 men, women, and children are trafficked against their will across international borders. Of those, 14,500-17,500 are trafficked into America. Victims are forced into prostitution, or to work in sweatshops, quarries, as domestic labor, or child soldiers, and in many forms of involuntary servitude.

Throughout the past three years, the Bush Administration has taken strong steps to combat trafficking at home and abroad. Today at the conference, the Bush Administration announced new steps and resources to combat human trafficking. These initiatives include $14 million to law enforcement to help human trafficking victims, $4.5 million for organizations to assist victims, new interagency cooperation to ensure the timely delivery of benefits and services to victims, a model state law criminalizing human trafficking, new training resources, new task forces, as well as greatly increased investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking.

“From the very beginning of his Administration, President Bush has spoken forcefully and eloquently about the brutal crime of human trafficking,” said Attorney General John Ashcroft. “We will protect the victims, prosecute the perpetrators, and build partnerships to address, attack and prevent human trafficking. These steps send a clear message that America will repel aggressively assaults on our core values of freedom and respect for human dignity. We have had success in the past three years, but we understand that these efforts are only the beginning. It is critical that we work together to track down those who hide their barbaric businesses in the shadows, and to help their victims.”

$14 Million for Law Enforcement Agencies and Service Providers To Help Trafficking Victims: The Bush Administration today announced Department of Justice funding to support and implement local efforts to identify, rescue, and restore victims of trafficking. The Justice Department will make available $14 million to law enforcement agencies and service providers, and as many as 25 communities across the country will be eligible to receive this funding. This money will support anti-trafficking efforts to identify, rescue and restore victims of trafficking in communities across the country. The Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) will administer the new grant program.
$4.5 Million for Organizations To Help Trafficking Victims: Today, the Justice Department awarded $4.5 million to nine local organizations that provide shelter where victims of trafficking can find refuge in the interval between rescue and the determination of eligibility for public assistance and other benefits. The grant program provides comprehensive services for victims of trafficking by building on existing community resources, to strengthen the collaboration and cooperation among existing agencies and organizations that serve trafficking victims; to provide training to criminal justice personnel, social service providers and the public of the rights and needs of trafficking victims; and to support the ability of trafficking victims to cooperate with law enforcement and prosecutors in the investigation and prosecution of trafficking cases. The Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance and the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) is administering this grant program. Grant recipients include:
Cooperation to Combat Trafficking: To ensure the smooth and timely delivery of benefits and services to trafficking victims as well as comprehensive investigations and prosecutions, the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security are working together to share information and provide benefits to victims most in need. In addition, the charter for the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center went into effect July 2004 and brings together representatives from law enforcement, intelligence, and diplomacy to combat alien smuggling, trafficking in persons, and terrorist travel networks.
Comprehensive Anti-Trafficking State Laws: While many states have laws that address various aspects of the crime of trafficking in persons, comprehensive anti-trafficking statutes are needed to deter and punish the wide range of coercive tactics used by traffickers. To meet this need, the Justice Department has drafted a model anti-trafficking statute for states. Texas, Washington, Minnesota, Missouri, and Florida already have comprehensive state trafficking laws.
Increased Investigations and Prosecutions of Human Traffickers: The Bush Administration has greatly increased human trafficking prosecutions. From FY 2001-2003, the Justice Department initiated prosecutions of 110 persons, nearly a three-fold increase compared to the previous three years. Of those, 78 involved allegations of sex trafficking. From FY 2001 to now, the Department obtained convictions and guilty pleas from 107 individuals. From FY 2001-2003, the Department opened 210 new investigations, more than double the number opened in the previous three years. At present, the Department has 168 open investigations into possible human trafficking crimes, more than twice as many as were open in January 2001.
Anti-Trafficking Training for Law Enforcement and Organizations that Help Victims: The Department of Justice provides anti-trafficking training to federal, state and local prosecutors, as well as law enforcement agents and officers, to non-governmental organizations and to officials of foreign governments. The training program will be made available to trafficking response teams attending the conference to enhance their efforts. The Justice Department is also developing a model curriculum for the victim-centered approach to identifying and rescuing trafficking victims and investigating and prosecuting their traffickers and abusers.
Anti-Trafficking Task Forces: To combat trafficking, the Bush Administration has convened anti-trafficking task force coalitions in Philadelphia, Phoenix, Atlanta, and Tampa and will create a dozen additional task forces this year. These task forces bring together federal, state, local, and non-governmental sectors to combat trafficking and provide comprehensive assistance to victims. Additionally, public service announcements have been issued in Spanish, Russian, Polish, Chinese, and Korean to inform victims of their rights.
These new efforts will support the Bush Administration’s ongoing initiatives to combat human trafficking and provide assistance to trafficking victims. Since 2001, President Bush has provided more than $35 million to 36 faith-based and community organizations across the country to aid victims of trafficking with services such as emergency shelter, legal, mental, and health services, as well as English-proficiency instruction. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services has launched a referral hotline to help victims. The Administration has also worked to provide immigration relief for trafficking victims through a new class of visa (T-visas) that allows trafficking victims to remain in the U.S. for three years with work authorization and access to benefits and services. Additionally, on an international level, President Bush’s budget has provided more than $295 million to support anti -trafficking programs in more than 120 countries since 2001.
The conference was attended by trafficking response teams made up of federal, state and local law enforcement, prosecutors and victim service providers from at least twenty-one cities with known concentration of trafficking victims. Teams came from communities including Atlanta, GA; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; El Paso, TX; Houston, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Long Island, NY; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Newark, NJ; New Orleans, LA; New York, NY; Metropolitan Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; Phoenix, AZ; Richmond, VA; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; St. Louis, MO, Seattle, WA and Tampa, FL. These teams learned how to uncover and investigate cases, as well as how to provide services to trafficking victims. The conference emphasized the importance of combating trafficking using a victim-centered approach. Rescuing victims requires proactive law enforcement strategies and an understanding of the collaborative approach to human trafficking that includes community members, first responders, restorative care service providers, victim advocates, as well as state, local, and federal law enforcement.
The latest U.S. government interagency report on human trafficking, Assessment of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons can be found at www.usdoj.gov/trafficking.htm <http://www.usdoj.gov/trafficking.htm>.
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04-489

"Itch Bin Ein Cabana.":
Bush Told To Tell Jeb And The Miami Mafia That CIA Plans To Step Up Attacks On Cuba:
Iraq and Afghanistan Fucked Up? Iran and North Korea Nuked Up? Let's Beat Up On Cuba!:
The Evil Pimpyre Of Dick Darth

By JEFFEY LUBE
The Assassinated Press
October 11, 2003

Washington - Faux President George W. Bush vowed Friday to abet the Miami Cuban drug, prostitution and gambling cartels' return to Cuba and to return the island nation to its former glory as the Best Little Whorehouse in the Americas. Bush was told to read that the United States will beef up its travel restrictions to Cuba and has out sourced $40,000,000 to organize a special public relations task force to hustle more Cubans into fleeing the island. "America hasn't been able to piss off the porch, if you know what I mean, since the White Devil lost Cuba," Bush roared as the crowd surged to its feet for a standing ovation.

He also bitterly denounced Haitian boat people as deceitful and selfish for trying to disguise themselves as Cubans to gain entry into the U.S. When this reporter queried Bush as to why so few Cuban boat people were black like the Haitians, the diminutive Texan replied, "Some Cuban darkies got in!? Damn, I specifically promised my brother, Jeb, no darkies." He denied the light years between U.S. approaches to Cuban and Haitian immigration policy had anything to do with race. "I'm not a raceman," Bush declared, "Itch bin ein Cabana."

He ventured on, "Clearly, the Castro regime will not surrender and be killed by its own choice. We've tried the CIA's way and got the, aptly named Bay of Pigs. Sounds like barbecue at the beach. Don't it? Somebody at Langley had quite a self-deprecating sense of humor. Probably, Frank Wisner. Ed Lansdale's operation Mongoose was like Halloween for mass murderers, everybody dressin' up like priests and nuns and all, even my daddy. And Dr. Sidney Gottlieb was like half Lucrezia Borgia and half Nutty Professor.

"But Cuba must change back to the U.S.'s $2.00 whore it once was," he told an invited audience of Cuban exiles, organized crime figures, casino operators, the National Association of Flesh Peddlers, the anti-Castro terrorist group, Alpha 66, the Fort Detrick Bridge Club, the Semtex Corporation, the Committee For the Preservation of the Economic Interpretation of Social Darwinism and Phrenology, the Illuminati(Palm Springs chapter), The Sons of Pantagruel, the International Brotherhood of Baseball Scouts and Meat Packers Union, the Sons of Sicily, lobbyists for Hit Man International Ltd., Cosmetic Surgeons Without Borders, the Meyer Lansky fan club, the Friends of Carlos Marcello, the Hernan Cortez Olympic Crossbow Team and others during a Rose Garden British style tea and flogging ceremony as he gears up for the 2004 presidential scam. "If any group of people would sell out their own countrymen, its, you my friends, gathered here in this room," Bush warmly added with a hopeful wink of recognition.

Some of Castro's most ardent Cuban-American opponents in the arms, drugs and white slavery industries - who say Bush should have done more to foster democratic change in Cuba - also represent a vital source of back door money in Florida, a bribe-rich swing state that Bush has visited frequently since taking office in 2001.

A quick reprise of the history of the Caribbean as well as Central and South America will clarify what anti-Castro Cubans as well as the Cheney/Bush administration mean by "foster[ing] democratic change."

For instance:

The United States itself. The U. S. "fostered democracy" in the U.S. by stealing the land from its indigenous peoples and then stealing the Iroquois Five Nations governing system and turning into a concession stand for greed and exploitation.

Mexico. Steal half of it, annex it, and leave hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens stranded in a foreign country.

Guatemala. Organize a CIA coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz and install a series of military regimes that murder tens of thousands of Guatemalans mostly Indians.

El Salvador. The U.S. supports a tiny, decidedly undemocratic elite comprised of the 13 families that have enslaved much of the population. When a coalition of rebel groups, the FMLN, form, the democracy loving Carter and Reagan administrations spend billions to thwart it in a country of six and a half million.

Honduras. Prop up regimes that bump off any opposition to U.S. economic authority in that country and the region. Use Honduran territory for Contra terrorist camps.

Nicaragua. After the Sandinistas' successful revolution that overthrew the U.S. supported, brutal dictatorships of the Somoza family; after the Sandinistas win a democratic presidential election in 1984, the Reagan administration steps up its financing of a terrorist organization which comes to be known as the Contras. In 1934, Augusto Sandino, who led a revolt against U.S. hegemony in Nicaragua in the 1920's & '30s was treacherously assassinated with U.S. encouragement. Among the U.S. Military figures who were sent to 'pacify' Nicaragua was Marine Major-General Smedley Butler, the only man ever to receive the Medal of Honor---twice. In 1933 speech, he would have this to say about U.S. foreign policy in the region and elsewhere.

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

"I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

"There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

"It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

"I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

And so goes the astonishing record of U.S. 'support for democracy.' We could have reprised the torching of fair elections in the Dominican Republic in 1965 because the U.S. stooge wasn't gonna win.

We could have mentioned the economic desertification of Haiti since the early nineteenth century slave revolt against the French (reprise Viet Nam after World War II when the U.S. armed the just defeated Japanese to protect French interests there against the Viet Minh) and the overthrow of Father Aristide by U.S. bought forces.

We could have mentioned U.S. designed coups to overthrow democratically elected governments training, arming and using the military in Brazil, Uruguay and Chile.

We could have told stories of treachery like the U.S. sponsored murder of 5000 members of the political arm of the Colombian FARC, the Patriotic Union, AFTER an amnesty had been declared and as the Patriotic Union prepared to win municipal and district elections throughout the country.

We could go on about the CIA's lavish program to overthrow the current elected government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. We could systematically reprise a history of U.S. intervention and slaughter the length and breadth of Latin America and the Caribbean. Then we could do the same for the rest of the globe, Europe included. But for now...

Bush said the United States would step up enforcement of existing subversive and terrorist activity against Cuba's Communist government, such as the renewed use of WMD against the island population a la Ed Lansdale's Operation Mongoose and the Phoenix Program. Bush said CIA and FBI personnel disguised as U.S. Customs agents will step up illegal detention and interrogations of people going to and from Cuba. He alluded to one hopeful sign that Cuba was on the road to U.S. style democracy, the "illicit sex trade" surrounding Cuba's tourism industry, but offered no specific evidence of such a problem to the great disappointment of his audience.

He promised to increase Cuban immigration via a public outreach campaign to identify "the many 'white asses' still on the island." He pledged to funnel even more C-4 explosive to the Miami Cubans through Radio and TV Marti's Hugs For Drugs program.

"The Cheney administration is determined to bring death and deprivation to the people of Cuba," Bush said. He said he was directed to say that Secretary of State Colon Pile and Housing Secretary Mel 'Blank' Martinez will chair a commission that will develop a plan to help Cuba move back into the sphere of other American sponsored Caribbean and Latin American democratic enterprises such as Montesino/Fujimori Peru, Pinochet's Chile, Salinas's Mexico, Rios Montt's Guatemala, or the late D'Aubisson's El Salvador whenever Castro, who has ruled Cuba since 1959, is assassinated.

"The Cuban population will have to accept the standard of living of their neighbors, White America excluded. Cubans will have to trade their universal healthcare for Gloebbleization's low paying or non-existent factory jobs. Cubans must return to the near universal illiteracy rate of their neighbors in order to again be docile. Cuba needs a greater disparity of wealth in order to develop a more colorful culture of poverty to be exploited by the entertainment industry and to have any concern for the disparity declared class warfare.

Bush diddled on, "We must end this gap between Cuban children with first rate baseball equipment and the impoverished, yet 'democratic' Dominicans. How else can Real Sports resume doing sentimental, condescending stories about youthful pre-Castro Cuban ball players converting empty milk cartons into baseball gloves like their destitute yet 'free' Dominican peers who have had the benefit of U.S. democratic tutelage O Lo these many, many decades. As Brian Gumpy says,'Nothing is out of bounds?'" But something sure is foul.

"The transition back to enslavement will present many privations to the Cuban people and to America, and we will be prepared to stick it to 'em," the president said. Amnesty International, in its usual sold out, compromised way, expressed some concerns about Bush's proposals, saying they were "far from forward-looking" and would only hurt the people they are meant to help as though their was anything other than murder and theft on the minds of the Administration and the economic forces that wind them up every morning.

"At a time when the U.S. should put effective human rights strategies at the core of its Cuba policy, it may well have succeeded in doing the opposite," said executive director William Schulz. As though that weren't the U.S. intention and worse. What? Amnesty International and these other rights groups think they can trick or cajole the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds of the world into not murdering for money? If you take a liar at his word, your response is a lie. So much for the AI creeps.

Bush concluded, "We know that the enemy of every tyrant is the truth. That's why I'm shocked they haven't hanged Dick and Don by now. And little Kindasleezie too.

Fortunately for us, Americans wouldn't want to know the truth if it shat in their collective pie hole. And, by now, it would be so foreign to them it would indeed taste like shit. I mean, what can they do now? Can the American people claim that they didn't know about the millions of murders we, "their betters," to quote Woodrow Wilson, commit and have committed in their name? Who's going to believe them? Certainly not the aggrieved. And anybody who cops to the Nuremberg defense, "We did not know", would receive severe retribution.

So we can go to sleep at night assured that Americans will never want to know the truth. We can awake confident that Americans will continue to support our plans for military and economic conquest and slaughter. For the American people to do otherwise at this late date would be tantamount to suicide. To admit to the mass murders done in their name might be the last thing they uttered if they were in the wrong company. They must kill on for us in order to preserve themselves. They are us---killers but without the yachts, the servants, the gated communities, and the billions of looted dollars much of it from their own Treasury.

We, the elite, have nothing to fear from the U.S. citizenry. The American psyche cannot go anywhere. Americans have no choice but to continue to die for their lifestyle and for the kleptocracy that most benefits from that lifestyle's enormous excesses and intense addictions. Americans are not free to change their murderous destiny. Top that Fidel!"

10/11/2003

Impact from illegal alien labor:

- Costing health care, retirement funding, education and law enforcement, accruing at $30 billion per year.

- USA is foregoing $35 billion a year in income tax collections because of the number of jobs that are now off the books.

- Census Bureau estimates that 8.7 million people are illegally residing in the USA

- Urban Institute estimates a total of 9.3 million are illegally residing in the USA

- Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates a total of 9.2 million are illegally residing in the USA

- The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) stated that the Bureau of Labor could have missed as many as 10% of illegal aliens, since illegal aliens avoid census questionnaires. The CIS suggests the total illegal population is at 10 million or higher (March 2004).

- Employers have incentive to hire undocumented workers off the books.

- Overseas labor markets have forced US employers to find innovative ways to capitalize on sources of cheaper labor to stay competitive.

- Employers place pressure on the government to ignore the flood of cheap labor.

- Services, ie but not limited to: public school enrollment, language proficiency programs, and building permits, that cater to illegal aliens have increased in areas that are considered gateways for immigration.

- The top nine states that account for 50% of illegal aliens are: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, New Jersey, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina.

- Sole authority to govern immigration flow is placed on the federal government.

- Responsibility for providing support to legal and illegal immigrants rests with the state and local governments.

- Immigrants send home on average $1,400 to $1,500 per year through money transfers (also called Remittances).

- As per the World Bank in 2002, people sent $133 billion worldwide. Developing countries accounted for $88 billion of that.

- Remittances from the United States to Mexico have tripled to $13 billion between 1995 and 2003.

- As per the Pew Hispanic Center, 39% of surveyed Latino immigrants listed themselves as having legal status to opening bank accounts. This enables cash transfers through private money centers such as Western Union and Money Gram.

- HOWEVER, banks including Citibank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo Bank began accepting matriculas, which are photographed identity cards for Mexicans living in the US.

- Matriculas are obtainable by any legal or illegal Mexican. Matriculas are widely obtainable through Mexican consulates across the USA.

- To date, around 2.5 million matriculas have been issued, and the number is growing.

- In major illegal alien gateway cities, the influx of immigrants has led to a housing boom unexplained by official population growth.

- In New Jersey, the three gateway towns are New Brunswick, Elizabeth, and Newark.

- Housing permits in these three towns shot up over six-fold, while the rest of the three counties only saw a three-fold increase.

- 80% of these permits were designated for multiple tenent dwellings.

- Official statistics state that illegal aliens in New Jersey have jumped 110% – an estimate that is inconsistent with the housing statistics. Local realtors' stats for multiple tenent housing and school enrollments suggest the number is higher.

- The major illegal alien gateway cities have experienced school enrollments much higher than projections.

- The decrease in the number of births in the past decade had led education administrators to expect decreasing school enrollments as a post echo boom trend.

- A higher immigration rate, however, has offset the impact of declining births.

- Enrollment stats for major illegal alien gateway city school districts that included: Queens, New York; Elizabeth, Newark and New Brunswick, New Jersey; and Wake County in North Carolina revealed explosive growth in immigrant students, far beyond numbers consistent with *legal* migration limits.

- NYC public school system is the largest in the nation, enrollment of 1.1 million students.

- Immigrant student enrollment for 1998-2001 was 103,000, with Queens accounting for the largest share, 37,000.

- Between 1990 and 2001, more than half of New York City’s school districts increased their enrollments 10% or more, driven by a high number of immigrant students.

- New York City Public Schools, 1999 to 2001: 102,867 immigrant students: Dominican Republic, China, Jamaica, Mexico, Pakistan, Ecuador, Colombia and Haiti.

Child sex slaves
Sunday, September 22, 2002
Kevin Doyle in Phnom Penh

Monsoon rains pour down on the two children dressed in brightly coloured pyjamas as they rush through the warren of muddy Cambodian village paths.

Gaining speed, they leave behind an escort of child protection workers. They are on their way to the wooden shack homes on the outskirts of Svay Pak, Phnom Penh's notorious prostitution village, to meet parents they haven't seen for over three months.

The girls are aged between 11 and 14, though no one knows for sure. Earlier this year they were freed from sexual slavery after international child abuse investigators found them at work in the brothels behind their home.

But with no laws compelling them to stay under the protection of the organisations that assist the victims of Cambodia's booming child sex trade, they are returned to their parents and a less-than-reassuring promise that they will be kept out of prostitution.

A stone's throw away, dozens of western and Asian male tourists slug cans of imported beer and ensure that business at the brothels that have made Cambodia a world capital for child prostitution is brisk.

Drawn by the country's abysmal record on child protection and the grinding poverty that leads parents to sell their children into the sex trade, Cambodia has become a magnet for foreign paedophiles and child sex tourists.

A search on the internet turns up a sex tourism website with information on Svay Pak's brothels, detailing everything from the age of prostitutes to how much they should be paid for their services. Some provide details on how to deal with the police if arrested.

Incompetence and institutionalised corruption in the police force and judicial system have earned Cambodia an international reputation for child prostitution. The market for human traffickers who buy, cheat or kidnap women and children to work in the booming flesh trade is thriving.

Despite dozens of arrests in the past few years, only three foreigners -- two British and one Italian citizen -- have been successfully convicted for the sexual abuse of children in Cambodia.

Two Australian teachers in their mid-30s and a 69-year-old British man were arrested last month by Cambodian police, leading some children's rights workers to believe that the authorities may be trying to clean up the country's image as a haven for sex tourism.

With tourist arrivals growing at 30 per cent per year -- and expected to top one million people next year -- Cambodia's interior ministry recently announced the deployment of 500 tourist department police officers to hotels, beach resorts and ancient Buddhist temples to crackdown on the trade in children.

But without the real will of the government will to end the culture of child prostitution, judicial reform to stop offenders escaping prosecution and co-operation from foreign embassies -- some of whom have been accused of trying to protect their nationals from imprisonment -- children in Cambodia remain in danger, say child protection workers.

"Our women and children are not products for the sexual desires of foreign and local men," said the Cambodian Minister of Women's Affairs, Mu Sochua, a longtime campaigner against child sexual exploitation.

Key to rooting out the trade is punishing those who traffic children, and the pimps who profit from the business.

But there is also a pressing need to sensitise society to child sex crimes and force the police and Cambodian courts to get tough with offenders, says Sochua.

Police raid brothels to `rescue' children, but only rarely do they arrest the people who run them. When children are brought to court to testify against offenders, judges frequently cite a lack of evidence to pursue prosecutions.

"It is really, really clear that these cases are not important and women and children are stigmatised and discriminated against," says Sochua.

During a three-day official visit to Cambodia last month, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson spoke out against the Cambodian government's record on human trafficking, and said that Cambodian culture must no longer tolerate sex with children.

Speaking to the Cambodian parliament, Robinson acknowledged the country's Five Year Plan of Action against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children. But she said the government needed now to implement existing protection laws.

Robinson highlighted the controversial prosecution of ten Vietnamese prostitutes recently rescued from a brothel in Svay Pak village.

The youngest of these was just 13 years old, but they were later treated as criminals by a Cambodian court, which ordered them to spend up to three months in prison before being deported back to Vietnam.

"I can only say I regret the Cambodian court verdict," Robinson told the parliament.

"Those who have the misfortune to be trafficked are not criminals, but simple victims," she said.

Westerners only account for a small percentage of the adults who seek out sex with children each year. The majority of abusers are Cambodians and citizens of other Asian countries.

Many of these believe that having sex with children is therapeutic in old age, says Christian Guth, a former French police officer who leads a newly-established Cambodian police task force to fight child abuse.

Men searching for young partners, who they believe are less likely to be infected with Aids, have driven the growth of child sex in Cambodia. The country has the highest Aids rate in the region, with almost 3 per cent of adults infected out of a population of 12 million people.

"It's a huge business," says Guth.

Though technically illegal, prostitution booms in the country's brothels, massage and karaoke parlours, hotels, nightclubs and even restaurants where pretty `beer girls' -- promotional waitresses working for local and international beer companies -- earn extra money by having sex with customers whose appetites go beyond food.

Cambodia has an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 sex workers, and around a quarter of them work in the capital Phnom Penh. 30 per cent are under 18 years of age.

You don't have to look far to find the reason.

Three decades of civil war ended in 1998, and the country has made some progress in moving beyond the bloody legacy of the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge `killing fields' regime when an estimated 1.7 million people died as a result of Pol Pot's radical Maoist policies to create an agrarian utopia.

But Cambodians are still grindingly poor. Almost 40 per cent live below the poverty line -- which is set at a livelihood of less that US$1 a day.

Amid such poverty, the sex trade has flourished. Cambodian and Vietnamese children are frequently sold as virgins to men who pay anywhere from $700 to $1,000 to spend several days with them.

But their value soon depreciates to between $30-$40. Eventually, as the children mature, the price plummets to as low as $2.5 to $5 per customer.

Koey, who is 15 and from northwestern Cambodia, and her friend Lan, also 15 and from Vietnam, made headlines when they were rescued with eight other young girls from a underground sex ring set up exclusively for foreigners in the centre of Phnom Penh in 2000.

Both girls were sold as virgins to their first western and Japanese customers two months before being rescued. Despite their short time in the child sex business, both tested positive for HIV just days after being taken into care.

The girls were delivered in taxis to hotels and residential houses in the capital, where customers paid $30 to have sex with them. Child rights investigators who staked out the child sex ring reported that one of the customers was a western woman.

Police said they arrested two pimps when they raided the house where the girls were being held, but no foreign customers were apprehended and authorities would not release the names of the hotels to which they had been delivered.

Kim Sophon, the investigating judge in the case, said at the time that there was no need to charge the child sex customers. "We do not need to find the foreigners, because the prostitutes are used to having sex with customers and were not virgins," he said.

Child protection workers scoffed at the police investigation and said they were reluctant to provide police with evidence on child sex suspects because police would use the information to blackmail the suspect in return for burying an investigation.

Minister Sochua has protested publicly against several controversial court decisions that freed offenders. Combined with her efforts to keep the spotlight on the issue, including programmes to educate both law enforcement agencies and court officials, the message that sex with children is a serious crime may be sinking in.

"I still have a strong hope we can turn this situation around," she says. Recent imprisonments and arrests of foreign sex offenders are "a warning bell to foreigners who consider Cambodia a safe haven".

Before he moved to Cambodia John Keeler had lived in Ireland, travelling the country in an ambulance he had converted into a mini theatre which put on puppet shows for children.

The British national was arrested in 2000 in Cambodia, charged with videotaping four girls aged between 10 and 11 in sexually explicit poses. Only the second foreigner ever convicted of child abuse in the country, he got a three-year jail term. He will be out before he turns 60.

Keeler had lived in Cambodia, where he was the director of an English language school for young children, for around a year. He travelled regularly to meet his four victims, plying them with sweets near their tarpaulin-covered home on the banks of a river near Phnom Penh.

Court investigators also discovered indecent photographs of children on Keeler's home computer, literature from a paedophile website and e-mails which police investigators thought may have linked him to other sex offenders outside Cambodia.

Keeler later admitted to the Phnom Penh Post newspaper that he had been convicted in Britain for child abuse. He was known to police in this country as the `puppetmaster', and is understood to have been under close police watch while here.

The second foreign national convicted was Alain Filippe Berutti, 30, an electrician from Milan, who was arrested in June 2001 when police spotted him naked on a riverbank in Phnom Penh with four homeless boys aged 10 to 13.

Berutti, who admitted to soliciting the boys for sex, was imprisoned for 10 years in July. "I just make erotic experience, but not child abuse," Berutti told reporters after his trial.

Another British national, Derek Baston, who is 69, was arrested last month on charges of debauchery after he was allegedly discovered in a Svay Pak brothel engaging in sexual acts with an 11-year old girl.

Police who arrested Baston said that the owner of the brothel escaped before he could be arrested. If convicted of the crime, Baston could spend between 10 and 20 years in prison.

Shortly after this, two Australian men, employed as school teachers, were arrested separately in Siem Reap -- Cambodia's main tourist centre and gateway to the renowned 9th-13th century Angkor Wat temple complex.

Both men are charged with debauchery for allegedly having sexual relations with three girls aged between 12 and 14.

Long says she is 18 years old but looks far younger in her flip-flops, shorts and tight strappy tee shirt. A Vietnamese prostitute in Svay Pak, Long giggles when she says that `boom-boom' and `yum-yum' costs $5.

"But if you like young girls, it will cost $30," says Long, as she disappears then returns with a gaggle of Vietnamese children aged between 10 and 13, who are ushered in by a middle-aged `mamasan' -- a woman with cruel eyes and a head of tightly-set curls.

In accented English, the words `very clean', `very good for you', are the mamasan's pitch to the mostly foreign men who frequent Svay Pak and these young girls.

Like the majority of teenagers and children in Svay Pak, they have been brought by parents or human traffickers from Vietnam to work as prostitutes, feeding the faithful army of sex tourists who daily make the 11 kilometre trip from Phnom Penh.

In the past five years there has been an increase in the number of foreigners arrested for sexually abusing children in Asia.

The children abused were as young as six years old, says Christine Beddoe, program manger of Child Wise Tourism -- an initiative of the ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes) organisation.

Offenders will only go to places where they think they will not get caught, and Beddoe says that it was imperative to build a regional approach to the problem.

"We should remember the balloon theory. Squeeze a balloon on one side and it will bubble up somewhere else," she says. "Put pressure on the balloon from all sides and it will burst."

Ask Women's Affair's Minister Mu Sochua if pressure is being exerted in the right places to protect children in Cambodia and she replies with a question: "Have you seen Gary Glitter come back?"

Cambodia was thrown into a storm earlier this year when British tabloid press tracked down the disgraced 1970s glam rock icon Gary Glitter at an apartment in Phnom Penh where he had lived secretly for several months.

Glitter was sentenced to four months in a British jail in 1999 after pleading guilty to child pornography charges.

Though he had committed no crimes in Cambodia, Sochua led a campaign for his deportation, saying Cambodia was not a dumping ground for undesirables.

Glitter quietly slipped out of Cambodia as police discussed his deportation. There are no reports of his return.

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

The United Kingdom (UK) [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland [map] is a constitutional monarchy located on the British Isles, off W Europe. The country comprises England; Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland. The capital and largest city is London.

The United Kingdom is primarily a country of destination for trafficked women, children, and men from Eastern Europe, East Asia, and West Africa. Women are trafficked primarily for the purposes of sexual exploitation and involuntary domestic servitude, while men are trafficked for the purpose of forced labor in agriculture and sweatshop industries. The United Kingdom may also play a role as a transit country for foreign victims trafficked to other Western European countries.

The Government of the United Kingdom fully complies with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The United Kingdom handed down significant anti-trafficking prosecutions and sentences during 2004. The first prosecution under recent legislation that specifically criminalized trafficking for sexual exploitation resulted in a sentence of 18 years for the main offender. The parliament enacted new legislation to criminalize labor trafficking. The government continued to fund assistance to adult victims; however, its inability to accommodate the number of victim referrals was problematic. The government should prioritize establishment of a more stable mechanism to regularize victims’ status to ensure consistent delivery of services and protection. Moreover, differentiation of trafficking and smuggling statistics is recommended to better gauge year-to-year improvements. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2005 [full country report]

CAUTION: The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the UK. Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

Far More Lithuanians Sold Into Prostitution In Britain Since EU Membership

The number of young Lithuanian women sold for sex in Britain has increased from "single cases to dozens every month" since the Baltic state joined the European Union last year, the head of Lithuania's Interpol bureau said.

"Nightclub Girls Helped Me Escape Captivity"

The youngster, from Lithuania, says she was sold to a string of Albanian men who kept her prisoner in their homes, repeatedly raped her and forced her to work in brothels. The girl, who was allegedly tricked into traveling to the UK after being told she would work in a restaurant.

Tackle Child Exploitation, Ministers Urged

Based on reports from social services, police and immigration, it is known at least 250 children were trafficked into the United Kingdom between 1999 and 2003. UNICEF believes the true figure is much higher and that in the vast majority of cases children are brought in for labor.

Migrants Subject To Forced Labor In The UK

This report reveals that migrants who can legally work in this country are also shockingly badly exploited because they are unable to enforce their legal rights because of the power their employer has over them. The report, 'Forced Labor and Migration to the UK' reveals abuse, including very long hours, pay below the minimum wage and dangerous working conditions in a range of sectors including construction, hospitality, agriculture, food processing, horticulture, contract cleaning, nursing and care homes. Employers and agencies who break the law are rarely prosecuted or even inspected by the authorities.

Migrant women forced into cheap sex trade

London is witnessing a rising influx of eastern European prostitutes, many of them forced to sell unprotected sex for as little as £30 a time. Many of the women are trafficked here, under the illusion they will get jobs as waitresses or au pairs, or perhaps as lap dancers and nightclub hostesses - but will not have to sleep with customers.

Sex Slaves Vice Baron Sentenced

women kept by Ismailej, an illegal immigrant, were forced to work seven days a week, for up to 13 hours a day, and give up their passports to satisfy his "love of money". Brian O'Neill, prosecuting, told the court that Ismailej was the ringleader and that he did not regard the women as anything other than chattels.

The Third Way's Dirtiest Secret

A year ago this Saturday, 23 Chinese cockle pickers died at Morecambe Bay. A major new report uncovers the scale of forced labor in Britain and makes recommendations on curbing this new form of slavery.

Damning Report On Migrants Delayed

The report catalogues coercive techniques used by private employers to force migrants to work for low wages and in poor conditions, from physical and sexual violence to debt bondage and blackmail.

2005 Illegal immigrant who made a fortune from trafficking sex slaves was jailed for 11 years

2005 Criminal gangs blighting the UK with the problem, with women pressed into prostitution

2005 Trafficker jailed for 18 years … lured Lithuanian women with false promises of employment

2004 Three illegal immigrants jailed for a total of 40 years for selling teenage girl as a sex slave

2004 Grooming & trafficking vulnerable children as young as 12 from Welsh care homes

2004 Groundbreaking sentence increase for human trafficker

2004 Intl child trafficking ring sending Cameroonian children to UK to work in the sex industry

2004 Research shows - Trafficked women forced to work as prostitutes in every London borough

2004 Malawian women targeted by trafficking groups because they do not require a visa to enter

2004 They end up in bonded employment, paid minimal wages, unable to discharge their debt

2004 More than 250,000 sex tourists visit Asia each year, with 13 percent from Australia & UK

2003 At Nottingham's bus station, a young West African girl was found wandering alone

2003 She responded to a job advertisement in a local paper and accepted an au pair post

2003 Face of child trafficking to the UK is changing. Children transported from more countries

2003 4.25 Human trafficking 4.26 Trafficking for Prostitution 4.33 Trafficking in minors into UK?

2003 Africans Reportedly Trafficked To U.K. - child trafficking prostitution ring uncovered

[human trafficking]

[street children]

Sheik now owns NYC trophy buildings.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1519343/posts
Dubai Royals Snatch Up Manhattan Real Estate

Sheik accused in camel jockey abuse plot

By JANET PATTON

Lexington Herald-Leader

LEXINGTON, Ky. - Sheik Mohammed, one of the richest horse buyers in Kentucky and the world, has been implicated in the slave trade of child camel jockeys by a cable TV news program.

A report aired this week on HBO's Real Sports includes footage of appalling living conditions at camel-training camps and alleges that boy camel jockeys -- some as young as 3 -- are kidnapped or sold into slavery, starved, beaten and raped. The report links the abuses to Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum.

Sheik Mohammed is the crown prince of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. He also serves as defense minister for the UAE.

No representative of the Maktoum organization would comment on the report. Sheik Mohammed owns two horse farms in the Bluegrass -- Raceland in Paris and Darley at Jonabell in Lexington; no one from the farms would respond publicly.

And an e-mail sent Friday afternoon to Sheik Mohammed from his official Web site was not answered.

The report, which HBO says was filmed in the UAE, is not specific about the locations of the camps featured. Some appear to be in Abu Dhabi, which is also in the UAE. The report lays the responsibility for these atrocities at the feet of ''the rulers of the United Arab Emirates I the sheiks.''

But it focuses on only one member of any UAE royal family: Sheik Mohammed. At least some of the boy jockeys shown are allegedly at the Dubai camel track, which is owned and run by the Maktoum family.

The report calls the track ''the playground of the crown prince'' and contrasts the boys' hovels with the treatment of Sheik Mohammed's horses and camels.

HBO correspondent Bernard Goldberg said on the report that HBO received a letter from unnamed UAE officials who said that they were ''shocked that this is happening'' and that they ''are adamantly against it.''

The UAE, a confederation of Arab states, in 1993 banned the use of jockeys under the age of 15 or under 45 kilograms (99 pounds); in 2002, it reiterated the ban.

Greg Sullivan, chief spokesman for the State Department's Near Eastern Affairs Bureau, said State Department officials have urged the UAE to aggressively crack down on the trafficking of underage camel jockeys and are looking into the allegations raised in the HBO documentary.

''If the allegations prove true, the U.S. will use that information to further engage the United Arab Emirates government on that issue,'' he said.

Sullivan said that the State Department asked HBO to provide the names of the underage children featured in the documentary, but HBO declined to provide the information.

The State Department's 2004 Trafficking in Persons Report said the UAE government has made ''substantial efforts'' to crack down on the trafficking of children for camel jockey work, but Sullivan said the practice still exists as ''a form of human slavery.''

State Department officials have urged the UAE to impose a minimum age of 18 for camel jockeys.

Kentucky ties

Sheik Mohammed and other members of the Maktoum family have long been fixtures at the thoroughbred auctions at Keeneland. Under the royal blue silks of Godolphin, the family racing stable, the Maktoums have run horses in the biggest races in Europe and the United States, including the Kentucky Derby. The Maktoums annually hold the richest race in the world -- the Dubai World Cup at Nad Al Sheba -- and they fly the best horses and trainers there to compete.

Kiaran McLaughlin, a Lexington native who now trains horses in New York, spent a decade working for the Maktoums in Dubai. He said on Friday that he and other horse workers were well-treated.

McLaughlin said that he trained within half a mile of the camels but never saw any abuse or signs of child slavery. ''I don't know about that. I can tell you that I lived there and loved it,'' McLaughlin said.

''I can promise you Sheik Mohammed did not abuse any children,'' he said.

Members of the racing press, including a Herald-Leader photographer and reporter, were invited to Dubai in 1999 and given a tour of the country. While there, they saw tiny jockeys who appeared much younger than 15.

And Anti-Slavery International, a human rights group, in June 2004 released photos that they said were taken in Dubai showing child jockeys; they accused the UAE of keeping the boys in brutal conditions.

Kentuckians Marci and Todd Boston lived in Dubai for years. Todd Boston moved to Dubai in 1995 to work as a blacksmith for Sheik Mohammed. His wife joined him in 1996; Marci left in 2000; Todd left in 2002.

They always said that they loved their time in Dubai, thought of it as a second home, and meant to return someday.

But the Bostons said Friday they are very disturbed by the HBO report, and in retrospect by what they saw in Dubai.

They remember child camel jockeys.

''You kind of knew about it. You knew about the little kids,'' Todd Boston said, but they never heard about sexual abuse or beatings.

But based on the way he saw Arabs treat adult workers from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, he said, he isn't surprised by the allegations of child abuse.

The HBO report said many of the child jockeys were from slums in those countries.

Marci Boston said that she heard rumors at the time that the boys were ''taken'' from poor homes in South Asia, but that she never imagined the conditions they were living in while in Dubai.

Todd Boston said that in the morning as he went to the horse track he would wait as the camels crossed the road to their track.

''There would be a pickup truck following them with little bitty kids in the back, with little helmets on, waving,'' Boston said.

The Bostons are haunted by the memory of one green-eyed boy, about 4 years old they think, who they saw at the camel market wearing a helmet.

The boy stared at them as if he were ''desperate for love,'' Todd Boston said. They have no idea what happened to him.

''This is a double-edged sword. I worked for Sheik Mohammed and I respect him very much, but on the other side, I am just horrified by this,'' he said.

''I expect to hear from Sheik Mohammed. We need explanations,'' Marci Boston said. ''I'm so angry. We were there -- we saw the kids riding camels. I don't have a doubt about it.''