John Hopkins conference on Human Trafficking

So we're are starting our policy document capstone project, where all 16 of us write a joint policy document about a certain issue. Last semester they did Piracy in Somalia, and presented it to the Ambassador of Somalia.

We chose..........Sex Trafficking! We haven't narrowed it down yet but we're working on it. On Friday we'll be spending the day at George Washington University (GW) Library researching.
UPDATE: This Morning, 11/04/10 we decided on our specific topic...Sex trafficking in Thailand.

Yesterday morning at morning meeting, Noah told us that ironically, the day after we chose our topic, that there was a human trafficking conference at John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, right down the street from us. It was in honor of the 10 year anniversary of the passage of anti-trafficking legislation in the U.S. Robbie registered all of us. I had 2 free periods before lunch, so of course I went.

It was amazing. When I got there, Dc. Mohamed Mattar had just started talking. He is the Senior Research Professor of Law and the Executive Director of the Protection Project at John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He said that there are now 171 countries with some sort of anti-trafficking laws. He said that human trafficking is simply exploiting others. I also learned that the U.S has 44 states with some sort of law against human trafficking.

Right now there is a big movement for the "reduction of demand."

After Dr. Mattar, Mr. Cherif Bassiouni spoke. He is a distinguished Research Professor of Law Emeritus, President Emeritus of the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University, President of the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences. He has also held 24(ish) UN positions, has been cited more the 27 times in Supreme Court Cases and has wrote over 80 books. He personally investigated Yugoslavia's war crimes a while back and also the 1st rape case in history. He is quite a guy! And I got to meet him! :)

Cherif took a more pessimistic view of the human trafficking situation....

I'm exhausted so I'll finish this post tomorrow :)  I'M BACK!

Cherif says that Sex Trafficking is still not a global priority at all. 1 reason he says is that there is still inequality between men and women. Men are still considered superior and women inferior. A second reason for why it's not a priority is because of a sense of quarrelry. The demand for prostitutes has always been considered acceptable. This factor of the problem has always been overlooked. A third reason he gives is that we don't really know the facts, so we use generalizations. The number of trafficking victims can't be quantified, there's really no way to tell. The U.N. has used the number 2 million though as a guesstimate. The number's main purpose should be to "Shock the Conscience," as Cherif says. However, this number hasn't been effective in illustrating how bad the problem is.
How high does the number have to be before this issue is taken seriously? 4 million? 8 million? 20 million?

Cherif talked about how sex trafficking has alot to do with culture and superiority. For example, Women from Nepal are constantly sent into India, where the Indians (not all of them) consider themselves superior to the people of Nepal. This happens with many countries. Those who are considered inferior are thought of as commodities. He says that power is reflected by what type of women a country wants as prostitutes.

He said that patterns of internal sex trafficking are constantly overlooked, like in Brazil, where there's a big internal sex trade. He says that economic development could be the best preventative measure.

Some more things that I learned from Mr. Cherif:

• Policy of repression, like criminalizing prostitution, doesn't work, especially for the victims.
• This issue is driven by profit
• There are 319 world conflicts, that have caused 92 million deaths, twice as many as the World Wars combined. The minimum number of people who could have done it: 1 million. Number of people convicted: 87. The numbers speak for themselves.
• There have been more Palestinians killed by Arabs than Israelis, but the Arab Nations just want to punish the Israelis. Why haven't they been prosecuted? Why just the Israelis? This shows the double standard in world conflicts.
• In the 319 world conflicts, there's usually organized crime, much that revolves around drug trafficking. The Rape of women is common in ALL conflicts.
• the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda marries young women to their boy soldiers. The girls are commonly raped.
• There IS a connection between rape and sex trafficking, and it has to do with the value of women.
• 70% of all the refugees in the world are women and children
• The U.N proposed a "Global Action Plan" to combat sex trafficking worldwide. The U.S. OPPOSED it and said that it's a distraction from other issues.

One story he told really struck me. He told a story about an 11 year old girl he met abroad. This girl was a slave. She was constantly raped and impregnated by multiple men who "owned" her. By the time they found her, she was in a catatonic state, with no hope left. She died shortly after.

     Imagine if there really were 2 MILLION women and children going through this. 2 MILLION.