Last week, this space wrote about the fate of 72 migrant workers from Central and South America whose bodies were found in a remote farmhouse in northeastern Mexico, not far from the U.S. border.  The victims were apparently attempting to cross into the U.S. for work when they ran afoul of a drug gang that attempted to extort money from the group, and then murdered them in cold blood.

We asked the questions: who were these people, and how did they end up dead on the floor of a farmhouse far from their homes and families?

The New York Times has now provided at least some of the answers, in an admirable and detailed account that draws heavily upon the comments of the victims’ loved ones.  It is heart-wrenching reading, but a necessary reminder that there is in this world, amid splendor and plenty, a vast underclass of people who are desperately seeking out a better life, and because of their desperation, they are vulnerable to cruel exploitation — and worse.

Mexico’s National Commission for Human Rights said in a report last year that 9,758 migrants were abducted from September 2008 to February 2009. Guatemala said that last year 27,222 of its citizens were deported from the United States and 28,800 from Mexico; Honduras estimates more than 500 of its people leave for the north every day. That’s a snapshot in one corner of the world, of the flow of men, women and children along a lengthy and largely invisible network that seems to exist outside the law, outside society, and outside human compassion.

The story of these migrants is now at the stage when the appropriate government agencies are vowing to address the situation, order up more law enforcement, and renew their commitment to honoring the human rights of even those who are not citizens of their countries. The Mexican government, in light of the massacre, has promised a new strategy to protect migrants, including better coordination among state and federal agencies to dismantle kidnapping gangs and disrupt their finances.

But, paraphrasing actor George Clooney at this week’s Emmy Awards, the proof of progress will be whether — or at all — in three, four or five years time, people on the move in the hopes of a better life actually can reach their destination, alive.

It’s safe to say most people think that prostitution is a woman-only activity.  But news from Spain shows that perversity — and profits to be made from trafficking — can also involve men in prostitution.

According to news accounts, 14 Brazilian men were trafficked into Spain over the past several months to work as prostitutes.  Most were located in the vacation island of Majorca, but the trafficking ring placed the men in apartments all over Spain, moving them repeatedly to stay one step ahead of the police.

The accounts of these male prostitutes contain all the elements of modern-day slavery: the use of force, violence, drugs, impossible debts and no ready means of escape.  Drugs, in fact, play an essential role in sex trafficking, both as a means of control and as a “reward” for service.

How were these men treated? Spanish police offered this vivid and repulsive description:

The sex workers were allegedly provided with Viagra, cocaine and other stimulants to help keep them available for sex 24 hours a day. Most of their customers are suspected to have been men.

Human trafficking is reaching epidemic proportions in Florida, a retired DEA agent claims. But is it?

“I can’t tell you what a major problem it is in this state,” said Tony Attanasio, a retired U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent who created a human trafficking course for law enforcement. “It’s just an unbelievable problem.”

Attanasio, like many others in the human trafficking field, can’t cite actual numbers to prove his assertion.  Still, a spate of trafficking related cases in recent months throughout Florida certainly leaves the impression that the Sunshine State is seeing more than its share of this global crime.

And no wonder.  Geographically, Florida has long been an entry point to the United States for thousands of immigrants — most of them legal, some not — from Central and South America.  For the same reason, police say Florida is a major distribution hub in the worldwide illicit drug trade.  Smuggled aliens also have been found working the fields of the state’s huge agricultural industry.

But whether trafficking is an epidemic in Florida may be stretching things a bit — at least or until more precise data on trafficking crimes is available.  For now, observers and counter-trafficking advocates use a U.S. State Department statistic that 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the U.S. annually.  In a state with 16 million people, such a number — even if every individual were trafficked into Florida (an absurd calculation),  would constitute no more than a trickle.

All of which reinforces the argument that before progress can be made in attacking human trafficking, law enforcement first needs to have a clear idea about the nature and extent of this very real — but difficult to identify — crime.

A new law in the United Kingdom intended to reduce forced prostitution by going after customers is so far producing little results.

The law prosecutes those who attempt to purchase sex from women who have been forced into prostitution, and was seen by government officials and women rights advocates as a step toward curbing demand for trafficked prostitutes.  But in its first first 15 months, only three men have been “cautioned” for arranging contact with trafficked prostitutes.

Why?

According to government and law enforcement officials quoted in an article in The Guardian newspaper, there are several reasons that have made the new law unsuccessful.  The maximum fine, only 1,000 British pounds, gives police little incentive to see out violators.  But a more fundamental flaw, sources say, is the fact that sex trafficking in the UK may not be as widespread as thought.

A recent survey by the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) claimed that at least 2,600 prostitutes working in brothels in England and Wales had been trafficked from abroad. Many lived in debt bondage and were strictly controlled through threats of violence to family members.

The Acpo figures, relating only to off-street prostitution, are lower than previous estimates, the Guardian reports.  A Home Office report in 2003, based on an extrapolation of trafficking in London, estimated that there were 3,812 trafficked prostitutes in England and Wales.

Differences over statistics cause most people’s eyes to glaze over.  But crime data is critically important to human rights organizations and anti-trafficking organizations attempting to make the case that sex trafficking is a growing and widespread issue.  One could argue that few have been prosecuted for seeking sex with trafficked prostitutes because the offense is hardly more than a gentle wrist slap.  Or it could be that the number of prosecutions is so puny because there simply aren’t enough cases.

Either way, how many women are trafficked into prostitution is a question that awaits a definitive answer.

This is what can happen in the post-industrial world of the 21st Century if you are impoverished, if you are dispossessed, if you are desperate to stay alive.

This week in northeastern Mexico, not all that far from the United States and the dream of a better life,  police were led to a grisly scene at a remote ranch.  The bodies of 72 people were found in a room, dead.  Some were in sitting positions, others stacked like wood.  58 men and 14 women.

No one knows for sure, as yet, but it appears from the account of the lone survivor that the victims were migrants on the move north from Central and South America.  They were murdered, the survivor claims, by a criminal gang that was trying to extort payments from the migrants to smuggle them over the Mexico-U.S. border.  When the people refused to pay — or couldn’t — they were massacred.

The survivor’s testimony has not been confirmed, and may never be.  But according to myriad accounts (based most likely on information provided by anonymous government or law enforcement officials) the gang responsible for the murders is made up of thugs who are moving into the human smuggling business as a way to augment profits from illegal drug trafficking.

Here’s an explanation, offered not-for-attribution, by a U.S. official and quoted in the Times:

United States law enforcement officials have warned that drug trafficking groups have increasingly moved into the lucrative business of human smuggling, extorting fees from migrants for safe passage across the border and sometimes forcing them to carry bundles of drugs. Smugglers are also known to rob, kidnap and sometimes kill migrants on both sides of the border.

Indeed, the murders uncovered yesterday are just the latest in a series of similar incidents that have caused many, both inside and outside Mexico, to wonder whether that nation may be headed for  “failed state” status, a euphemism reserved for those countries in which the rule of law and protections of basic human rights are not only ignored, but flaunted

The broader story, the story we should be concerned about, is understanding how 72 people ended up dead on the floor of a building in the Mexican outback.  How did they get there?  Who brought them?  How much were they being charged to reach the “Promised Land” of America?

Writ large across the globe, the massacre in Mexico serves as a horrific reminder that the trafficking of human beings (call it smuggling if you want) is all about the exploitation of extremely vulnerable people.  Women forced into prostituting their bodies, children kidnapped off the streets of Mumbai or Port-au-Prince, or Guatemalan fathers seeking a job — any job — to support their family back home . . . these are the faceless, unnamed individuals who are largely invisible to the rest of us.

When you read about this incident, and others that are sure to arise, as sure as the sun will rise over the fields of northeastern Mexico, ask yourself:  who are these lost souls and, perhaps, what can I do to help end this form of modern-day slavery?

Craigslist, the online classified ad service, continues to draw the ire of woman’s and children’s rights advocates for its “Adult Services” section, which many argue is nothing more than an electronic prostitution solicitation business.

The controversial service still functions, despite a steady barrage of complaints and threatened legal action.  The latest round of criticism comes from the top legal officers of more than a dozen states, including Ohio’s Richard Cordray.  The various state Attorneys General have signed a sharply worded letter to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster and founder Craig Newmark imploring them to shut down the Adult Services section and stop accepting advertisements for sex.  The letter says in part:

“[O]nce an ad goes live on the site, it is a virtual certainty that someone will be victimized.
Yes, the perpetrators may eventually be apprehended and brought to justice, but the victim, assuming she survives, will carry the scars for life. No amount of after-the fact documentation will erase that enduring harm. Equally important, your much-touted “manual review” of Adult Services ads has failed to yield any discernible reduction in obvious solicitations.”

Craigslist executives have challenged the criticisms, claiming, for example, that no one has presented the service with documented law enforcement evidence implicating the advertisers in soliciting prostitution.

Statue from Stephen Hayes' "Cash Crop" exhibition

The United Nations’ (UN) International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is held on August 23^rd each year to remind people of the tragedy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

In late August, 1791, an uprising began in Santo Domingo (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic) that would have a major effect on abolishing the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The slave rebellion in the area weakened the Caribbean colonial system, sparking an uprising that led to abolishing slavery and giving the island its independence. It marked the beginning of the end of the Slave Trade.

While we take a moment to reflect on the horrors of the Slave Trade let us not forget that there is a slave trade taking place now.  It is estimated that over 12 million people in enslaved in the world today.  Of these, around 2.5 million people — men, women and, increasingly, children — are being trafficked within secret networks of criminal gangs who can reap huge profits from human misery, with little risk of arrest or imprisonment.

One of the most frequently comments we hear from visitors to the Freedom Center is that slavery ended with the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War.  Unfortunately, that’s not the case.  The form of slavery may have changed over the years, but not the exploitation of individuals worldwide through forced labor, sex trafficking and abusive child labor.

So as we celebrate the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade today, let’s keep in mind that the work of truly ending slavery once and for all is the human rights task for all of us in the 21^st Century.

In a little over a month, on October 9, the Freedom Center will open a new, permanent exhibition on contemporary forms of slavery and its sordid companion: human trafficking.

The exhibition, entitled “Invisible: Slavery Today,” explores the extent of slavery today, which by some estimates is a global business of exploitation, abuse and oppression involving at least 12 million people trapped in situations where they are subjected to violence, paid hardly anything, and kept isolated from the world around them.

A recurring theme throughout the new exhibition is the mistreatment of women as a root cause of modern slavery.  A majority of trafficking victims are women, for example.  In some cultures, women are assigned a secondary, subservient role, which makes them vulnerable to spousal abuse, political repression and, as the world is witnessing in Afghanistan, horrific torture.  Where women (and, increasingly, girls) are treated as less than equal to their male counterparts, they are often denied basic human rights, prevented from owning property and — not infrequently — sold off by their families into forced marriages, prostitution and slave labor.

This week, the Washington Post published a guest column by Alyse Nelson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vital Voices Global Partnership.  Her column asserts that while women are increasingly driving economic, political and cultural changes around the world, they lag behind in achieving equality in the law, the workplace, and society.

With fewer protections and a pervasive lack of respect, Nelson writes, women are constantly under physical threat.

“. . . only about one third of countries around the world have laws in place to combat violence against women, and in most of these countries those laws are not enforced, well resourced or taken seriously.

Violence against women and girls, in the form of human trafficking, harmful cultural practices, rape as a tactic of war and domestic violence, is one of the single greatest barriers holding women back. A staggering statistic: one out of every three women will be a victim of violence in her lifetime. And the problem is getting worse every year.”

Violence against women is tied to trafficking in several ways.  Traffickers abuse their victims as a method of control.  Spousal or parental abuse also is a factor in driving girls and women out of the home and more vulnerable to the promises of skilled traffickers. Recent studies in Europe also reveal that women — many of them abused or trafficked earlier in their lives — often run trafficking operations for criminal gangs.

The good news, or at least the optimistic view, is that achieving equal status in society (and in the process reducing or eliminating gender-based violence) isn’t a “zero-sum” game for society, Nelson says. No one’s rights need be taken away or diminished to elevate women to equality.  What’s more, she concludes, progress for women means progress for the world.

“If we’re looking to foster shared progress, progress that’s unqualified, sustainable and global,” Nelson says, “we’ve got to invest in womens economic, social and political presence with equal consideration.”

Ohio once again is being cast in an unflattering light for what a national anti-trafficking organization says is the state’s lack of progress in getting tough on trafficking crimes.

Washington-based Polaris Project has listed Ohio as one of 12 states that are not doing enough to combat trafficking.  A major reason for the low rating is the fact that the Buckeye state has so far declined to make trafficking a distinct category of felony crime.  Efforts to enact such a law have been stymied, but Toledo State Senator Teresa Fedor — who’s consistently brought an anti-trafficking proposal to the General Assembly — is hoping that this year, lawmakers will act.

How Men and Boys Can Help Fight Sex Trafficking

Ms. Magazine has a helpful checklist of actions men and boys can take to help stop human trafficking, especially as it involves the exploitation of women and girls.

Sex trafficking of women/girls is one of the fastest growing phenomena of modern-day slavery.  Increasingly, anti-slavery and womens rights advocates are looking at reforms that would attempt to limit or end demand for sex.  Traditionally, in most nations, laws governing sex-related offenses such as prostitution and soliciting for sex fall heaviest on the women themselves.  Penalties for those who operate brothels and work as “pimps” are often less severe. Customers (“johns”) often receive — if anything — a light fine.  The unintended consequence is that demand for sex remains high, since the risk of prosecution of customers is low.

This imbalance is increasingly the focus of anti-trafficking experts.  One place they are looking for data and experience is Sweden, which enacted legislation in 2008 that prescribes harsh penalties for sex customers, while treating the prostitutes more as victims.  Results to date are encouraging; Swedish law enforcement say trafficking into the country has declined sharply as demand has dropped.  Other nations, and several states in America, are evaluating the Swedish model.

HUMAN TRAFFICKING NOTEBOOK

In one small Mexican town, sex trafficking appears to be a sort of family business, handed down from one generation to another, but with untold numbers of young Mexican women traumatized — perhaps for life.

According to an investigative report by the Associated Press, the impoverished town of Tenancingo, in central Mexico, is the home to a prostitution ring that has operated for at least three generations luring young women into sex trafficking in Mexico City and in the U.S.

One anthropologist who has studied the ring says that, in the town of just over 10,000, there may be as many as 3,000 people directly involved the (prostitution) trade. Prosecutors say the network includes female relatives of the pimps, who often serve as go-betweens or supervisors, or who care for the children of women working as prostitutes.

One of the uglier sides of human trafficking is the procurement and sale of human organs.  Here’s a report from the Jerusalem Post about a group of Israelis who purchased kidneys from “donors” in the Ukraine, promising payments of up to $100,000 — but in some instances, actually stealing the organs.