A San Diego Union Tribune columnist, Michael Stetz, explores the confounding question of how it is that one of the nation’s top academic institutions can have among its students people who are so stone deaf to history that they can’t even grasp the frightful symbolism of a noose.  Here’s an earlier blog on the incident.

On such noose was found in UCSD’s main library last week, and the student who left it there, writing anonymously to the school paper, said the connotation of it as a symbol of hate never occurred to her. Which others find unbelievable.  “Nooses are regularly left as icons of intimidation,” Stetz quoted Jonathan Markovitz, a UCSD graduate and author of the book, “Legacies of Lynching: Racial Violence and Memory.” “They are the single most vivid symbol of racial terrorism and oppression, as they not only invoke but celebrate the power of the mob.”

The column goes on to offer the comments of Freedom Center CEO Don Murphy, a UCSD grad who happened to be on campus last weekend to make a presentation on Black History Month.  Stetz quotes Murphy on what he thinks is the cause of the historical ignorance:  serious gaps in education about our national past.

All of which underscores the relevance of the Freedom Center’s current exhibition about lynching, “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America.”  Perhaps, if it could be arranged, UCSD could bring the exhibit to campus and help its bright, eager students learn something about a dark chapter of American history.

According to a 2005 survey by the respected International Labor Organization (ILO), at least 12.3 million people around the world are toiling in some form of forced slave labor.  Of these, about 2.45 million individuals are caught in a vast, largely hidden human trafficking economy whose tentacles reach throughout the globe, including some 15,000 – 20,000 who are trafficked into the U.S. annually.  Just under half (43%) of those being trafficked worldwide are involved in some form of commercial sexual exploitation. Far and away, according to the ILO, most trafficking occurs in Asia, but it is increasing everywhere.

And yet fighting this rising tide of the slave trade is, for most police organizations around the world, like trying to find a light switch in a pitch-black room. They know it’s there, but from cops on the beat to national and trans-national security agencies, understanding the extent of the trafficking problem — and where it is happening — remains a significant challenge. As the DCAF report notes, “Although various international and national entities are today tackling human trafficking, reliable information is still lacking on the scale of the phenomenon, on the way it works, and on the most effective means to prevent it.”

Macro data and estimates of the extent of trafficking are available.  What’s lacking are local and regional statistics (or “intelligence,” as police call it) that could help counter-trafficking officials pinpoint problems in their jurisdictions. (more…)

Virtually every nation on earth has a law prohibiting slavery and human trafficking.  Yet by almost all accounts, human trafficking is growing worse: a $32 billion global business that is now on par with illegal drugs and weapons sales.

As the scourge of modern-day slavery continues to seep into the fabric of contemporary societies world-wide, an obvious question arises: what can — and is –  being done about it?

If there’s any group or sector for which this question is especially pressing, it would be the world’s law enforcement agencies and criminal justice systems.  It is police and prosecutors and judges, after all, who make up the frontline troops in the battle to check the spread of slavery.  Are the world’s police agencies and judicial systems up to the task of identifying trafficking crimes, arresting the perpetrators, disbanding trafficking rings, helping protect victims and obtaining successful prosecutions?

The answer right now is no, according to a compilation of research studies by a Swiss-based think tank, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF). The business of buying and selling humans on a global scale, the report concludes, is growing faster than the ability of law enforcement to control it and courts to prosecute it.

For anyone seriously interested in understanding contemporary slavery, the report, entitled “Strategies Against Human Trafficking: the Role of the Security Sector,” is a must read. Through more than 514 extensively researched and annotated pages, dozens of scholars and security experts probe the issue of human trafficking from the perspective of how well or poorly police, prosecutors, judges and victim advocates at the local, national and international levels are dealing with the issue.

The report’s overall conclusion is not encouraging.  Police, starting with the proverbial cop on the beat, are falling behind in the battle to stop trafficking. Although prosecutions are increasing worldwide, the experts writing in the DCAF report say that the number of cases actually brought and successfully prosecuted is woefully inadequate. Just as alarming, the report contends that human trafficking victims often end up as legal lost souls who remain vulnerable to further exploitation.

There isn’t a chapter in DCAF report about the United States.  But much its overall findings  echo an assessment made in a recent series or articles in the Kansas City, Missouri,  Star newspaper.  That series had this to say about domestic efforts to gain control of trafficking: “After spending millions of taxpayer dollars, America appears to be losing the war (against trafficking) in its own backyard.”

The Kansas City series, like the DCAF report, dwells extensively on the pivotal role and response of law enforcement units, the court system, and government agencies to the trafficking issue.  The DCAF report covers a broad, transnational canvas; the scholars whose chapters are included in the report are experts in their field whose writings draw upon extensive research in Europe, Southeast Asia and the UK.

If the overall assessment is grim, the reasons for the report’s pessimistic tone are manifold, ranging from inadequate intelligence to the lack of inter-agency cooperation at both the national and transnational levels.  Police corruption is also a factor, especially in poorer nation states.  Most of all, the report says, a pervasive lack of acknowledgment by the “security sector” (i.e., law enforcement and the criminal justice system) that there even is a contemporary slavery issue is holding back progress. Absent stepped-up training and enforcement, which would produce more prosecutions under existing laws, the DCAF report concludes that the contemporary slave trade in human beings will continue to expand its tentacles around the globe.

Since its release this past summer, the DCAF report hasn’t gotten much attention by the world news media.  But there’s much in the study worth commenting upon.  So over the next week or so, we will delve into the DCAF report in a series of posts here on the Freedom Blog.

The first blog will deal with how the lack of trafficking data is hindering progress.

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America is receiving strongly positive initial reviews by the local news media and online bloggers.   In the words of blogger David Bowman, the exhibition is “educational, painful and powerful.”

Disclaimer:  The Freedom Center invited a group of active and influential social media commentators (you could call them “gurus) to a sneak peek of Without Sanctuary.  Our purpose was straightforward — to help generate a community-wide discussion about the exhibition and its relevance and meaning to contemporary audiences.  Our ground rules were simple:  there were no ground rules.  Each of the dozen bloggers who accepted our invite could write and post whatever they wanted, good, bad or indifferent.

From what’s been posted so far, the exhibition’s graphic (often grisly) lynching images evoke strong feelings and a range of emotions.  Here’s Michael R’s description:

“To say it was compelling would be a massive understatement. Over and over again, I was given a chance to bear witness and understand how awful and massively prevalent lynchings were. The message was clear: it didn’t just happen in the South, it wasn’t a few isolated nutters, it wasn’t just men, and it wasn’t just African-Americans.”

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We express our personal condolences to the Haitian people and, at the same time, we take great comfort and pride in witnessing once again, how the human spirit of sharing and giving can help surmount even the most desperate tragedies.

The dimensions of the devastation of the earthquake in Haiti are still not known, but it is certain that many thousands people were killed or injured, and untold more left without food or shelter.  The good news arising from this calamity is the world’s outpouring of support for the Haitian people.  Food, medicines, and essential supplies are already in transit, and rescue crews and emergency personnel from the United States and other nations are already on the scene.

Like many other organizations, the Freedom Center wants to contribute to alleviate the suffering.  On Monday, January 18 — the national celebration of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King — we will offer free admission to everyone, as we have ever since we opened five years ago.  This time, however, we’re asking everyone to bring with them an item of children’s clothing, such as shoes, shorts, pants, t-shirts, or a shelter item such as a pillow or blanket.  These will be collected by 1-800-Got Junk throughout the day, and then transported to Matthew 25 Ministries, which will ship the collected items directly to Haiti.  The logistics for this collection were arranged through the Cincinnati Reds.

Why children’s clothes?  As is often the case in major catastrophes, children are separated from their families and must fend for themselves.  Ominously, they become immediately vulnerable to not just physical harm, but also to being kidnapped by human traffickers and sold into forced labor and sex trafficking rings.  Shipments of items for children will help relief workers focus on finding and protecting these young victims.

Please join us in your own way in supporting efforts to protect the children of Haiti and in praying for the recovery of all the people of Haiti from this tragedy.

Google, Inc., the increasingly all-powerful web presence in everything from web browsers to email, is threatening to close up shop in China.  The reason, according to the company, is that its operations there are under cyber-attacks that are focused upon obtaining information about Chinese human rights activists.

Google also claims that it’s not the only firm under duress; more than 20 other firms also have been subjected to hacking from internal Chinese sources.  It also says that Gmail accounts in the U.S., Europe and China have been “routinely accessed” by unknown third parties.

Here’s the company’s full statement.

This is a breath-taking announcement for many reasons, not the least of which is the inescapable irony arising from Google’s controversial position to accept certain levels of official Chinese government censorship in 2006 in order to access the huge market there.

It’s also yet another loose mooring in the ongoing efforts by the government of the United States to forge a effective economic, political and cultural relationship with China.  As the world saw during the Beijing Olympic Games, any sort of protest activity was smothered well in advance of the the world news media descending into China to cover the games.  And as Google’s statement makes abundantly clear, China will event turn on its business allies if it feels they are getting in the way of its relentless drive to create the world’s dominant economic super-power.  It thus remains very much to be seen whether anyone in China’s vast governmental infrastructure will even take notice of Google’s threat.

Let’s see if Google follows through and departs its lucrative — but troubling — Chinese market.

Comments on this announcement are all over the internet.  Here’s one sight where the fur is already flying . . .

Sex trafficking is by general agreement the fastest growing and one of the most pervasive forms of contemporary slavery in the U.S. and around the world. Now, under intense pressure by women’s advocacy and anti-prostitution groups, governments and law enforcement agencies are looking to Sweden for a possible solution.

There, a decade-old national law makes the purchase of sexual services a crime. Offenders face a fine or up to six months in prison, with pimps and other traffickers facing stronger penalties, including jail for up to 10 years. Prostituted women, instead of being prosecuted, are instead offered social service assistance to help them develop another career choice, while recovering from the dehumanization of their experience. One of the best descriptions and analysis of the Swedish law is from the California-based Women’s Justice Center.  Most importantly, as the Women’s Justice Center article makes clear, the law appears to have made a serious dent in sex trafficking into and within Sweden.  In the past few years, only 200 to 400 women and girls have been sex trafficked into the country, compared to the 15,000 to 17,000 that are trafficked into neighboring Finland.

The Swedish law (since adopted in similar form by Norway and Iceland) represents a radical change in the philosophy of how to deal with prostitution.  Currently in the U.S. and most other nations, women who sell their bodies are most often prosecuted under state or local vice laws; their controllers (pimps) often receive light or no punishment — as do the customers buying sex.  Seldom do police have the time or the command to look more deeply into situations that could include the telltale signs of trafficked slavery: women held against their will, under threat of real or psychological violence, and with no ready means of escape. This imbalance in the law deeply offends some women’s rights groups — but for widely differing reasons.  Some want to eradicate prostitution as a modern-day equivalent of slavery; others, however, hope to see prostitution legalized as a legitimate form of work.  Both sides agree upon the fundamental unfairness of laws that place the full burden of prosecution on the women themselves.

Now, with Sweden leading the way, that imbalance may be righting — with huge consequences in the U.S. and elsewhere.  Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland and other nations are evaluating the Swedish model, as are several cities (including Cook County, IL — Chicago) and states in the U.S.

Is there a trend developing? Is this the common sense solution to an age-old societal problem? It’s too soon to tell, but if government and law enforcement is serious about stopping the human trafficking of girls and women for sex, it’s probably time to look to Sweden for an answer that just might work.

It was almost inevitable (and predictable in the minds of many) that when criticism of President Barack Obama began to be heard across the land, voices would be raised asserting that the criticism was motivated by racism. Just as predictably, that assertion has been vigorously refuted, with Obama’s critics arguing that it’s the Administration’s policies that are under attack — not his skin color.

This is a sensitive matter, almost impossible to prove or dispel.  But it could be a healthy debate if it focuses attention on our historical dalliance with racism.

The trajectory of this development seems almost scripted:  after an initial honeymoon with voters and the news media, the Obama Administration has hit a rough patch over his handling of the economy. healthcare overhaul, and America’s strategy in Afghanistan.  The President’s ratings have dropped like the stock market earlier this year, and even within his own Democractic Party, observers are wondering out loud whether the nation’s first African American president is up to the task.

The tone of the attacks, however, do prompt questions related to attitudes and views of some of the critics.  Obama is called a Nazi (or a communist), and the far right fringe insists that Obama was born in Kenya — despite clear evidence of his Hawaiian birth. South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson’s angry outburst, calling Obama a liar to his face (and a national audience) was audacious, even shocking, in its disrespect for both the man and the office.

Wilson’s behavior was just the latest in what suddenly appears to be a national epidemic of boorish behavior. From Serena Williams and Roger Federer on the tennis court, to Kanye West on the MTV stage, to the bulging vein protests at several health care forums around the nation, we’re in the midst of a phenomenon in which civility has been supplanted by “in-your-face” contempt.

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As the world’s attention is focused on Iran, the escalating struggle in Afghanistan, and American military withdrawal from Iraq, the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur has been pushed farther and farther off the front page.

Now, according to a report in the New York Times, there’s a reason for the relative lack of attention: the tribal warfare in Darfur has diminished, or at least shifted to South Sudan,where internal conflicts are generating increased violence.

American foreign policy continues to emphasize the issue of genocide in Darfur, but President Obama’s military adviser in the region is describing the situation as “the remnants of genocide.”

It’s encouraging, of course, if the slaughter of innocents due merely to their tribal heritage is in fact lessening. But it is difficult to take much comfort in the situation in the Sudan, where more than 3,000,000 people are displaced as a result of the decade-long conflict, and where civil war in the South appears imminent.

We’ve posted numerous blog posts on this site about human trafficking worldwide. But sometimes, words on a computer screen fail to convey the true horrors of contemporary slavery.

Now, a new film simply titled “Playground” gives anyone who watches it a veritable body blow of unforgettable images of young children caught up in sex trafficking. But these are not teenagers in Thailand or Brazil; these are young girls and boys in the United States.

“Playground” was created by film maker Libby Spears, and among its producers are George Clooney and film director Steven Soderbergh. (Here’s a link to the Nest Foundation’s website; scroll down the left hand side to the “View Excerpts from the Film” link). The pedigree of quality is immediately apparent; this is a professionally rendered glimpse into the seamy underside of life in America, where children barely into their teenage years are sexually abused and exploited against their will and (as the film graphically shows) threatened with physical and emotional violence.

“Playground” — even just an excerpt — is not easy to watch. But if the U.S. and the rest of the world is going to come to grips with modern forms of slavery, “Playground” just might be the 21st Century’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

A book review by Carl Westmoreland, Senior Historian, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

The history of the Underground Railroad in the United States is rooted in the soil of Black self-sufficiency. A growing number of Americans and members of the world community are being drawn to the universality of the drama of the struggle of America’s most despised people to become free — slaves. A new book expands and enriches the palette of those ordinary people who composed America’s second revolution. “Making Freedom: The Extraordinary Life of Venture Smith,” by Chandler Saint and George Krimsky, is a book well worth reading and savoring.

It is agreed by most American historians and scholars that the revolution of 1776 was instituted by and for the benefit of white males. While the Revolutionary War was underway, men of African descent were petitioning the Massachusetts legislature to initiate laws that would emancipate. Venture Smith, who had been enslaved in Long Island and Connecticut, was singlehandedly engaged in his own battle to secure emancipation. Born near present-day Ghana and transported as a slave to the Caribbean island of Barbados, Broteer Furro was an anonymous slave for more than 25 years. Before his life’s journey ended, Venture Smith (as he was renamed) purchased his freedom, bought land, and help secure the freedom of other African men.  As a businessman, Smith learned how the American economy worked. And to the highest extent possible, he used that knowledge to earn the respect of his peers — white and black.

Freed from slavery, he became an active and respected member of society in late 18th Century New England, and even narrated his life experience, published in a book entitled Venture Smith, 1729?-1805 A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa, but Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America. Related by Himself.

Venture Smith’s story is a celebration of the power of the ordinary. What appears to be a predictable rhythm of work of loyalty to family and community left a mark on those who knew or Smith. Venture Smith led no army, he slew no dragons; however, he cleared pieces of rocky land, bought a pew in his church and secured a final resting place — and purchased a granite head stone — for his wife and himself in a white cemetery.

Dr. Krimksy’s and Mr. Saint’s research of the public record resulted in a detailed documentation that defies the redundant excuse that the lives of Africans in America could not be properly researched. The archaeological work at Venture Smith’s grave site was witnessed and monitored by his direct descendants, whose very presence enables us to put a Black face on a family that goes back to America’s founding.

The story of Venture Smith illuminates the lives of ordinary Black men and women who would not be denied personal freedom. Smith was never given a banquet; to our knowledge, no brass band played for him during or after his life. His legacy and his bloodline have been preserved by the existence of men and women who carry his name. Venture Smith’s descendants cooperated with the authors, and it shows: they participated in the telling of an inspiring personal history that allows all Americans to see great, great-great, great-great-great grandsons and daughters of a son of Africa.

What would really make Venture Smith’s story live on would be roundtable discussions between the authors and members of Smith’s family, perhaps on radio or through a television documentary. That would be something special and productive for us all.