Quoted from page Dailymail.com, Saud bin Nasser Al Shahry sell her a price of U.S. $ 20 million or about Rp183miliar. He admitted that he was forced to sell the child in order to support his wife and daughter.

Saud states would take care of buying and selling process of their children to court. Saud had already arranged for the government to help its financial problems after the bank closed its businesses. Apparently, this request was rejected because of the age of Saud has more than 35 years.

Not known whether the action of Saud is just looking for popularity or for real. Because, Facebook does not allow anyone to post content that violates a person’s human rights.

Human trafficking is itself a violation in Saudi Arabia, although not aligned with international standards of human evil is strongly opposed.

The latest report, cited in Ventura Beat, The Saudi government tried to minimize human trafficking. Although, there is evidence of the extent of this crime happening in the oil producing countries. Law enforcement was considered still less to deter traffickers.

Saudi Arabia’s human rights groups, The National Society for Human Rights also released that half the children in the country experiencing domestic violence.

These are issues that many of us in the world are lucky enough to not have to deal with or ever even think about. But for the estimated 27 million people who are living in slavery, it is a nightmarish reality. They wake up every day in brothels, in factories, in the homes of people who don’t bother to feed them more than scraps of give thme decent medical care.

Fortunately there is something you can do to help. Volunteer your time, donate money, educate others. If you are able to, you can also donate your time to helping retrain those who have been rescued. If you can’t spare the time or money, Briskfish is running a competition with the winning charity receiving $50,000. This would mean more resources for giving people a free and independent life for the first time ever. It’s an action that takes less than a minute of your time but can mean freedom for others.

Visit Free The Slaves.

About The Author: Athena is a writer, sex worker ally, and activist. 

Read more from her here. 

The ongoing debate on prostitution hasn’t progressed too far. So far, we are still stuck on the question on whether we should be legalizing prostitution or not. Though this shows a certain lack of progress, it is quite understandable.

Societies vary on this topic. What maybe acceptable to one society may not be acceptable to the other. For example, most of the western countries are somewhat tolerant about prostitution. However, many eastern countries are opposed to prostitution and treat it like a crime.

The policy of a country like say, the Netherlands will be in stark contrast to the policies followed by say, Saudi Arabia. Netherlands openly supports prostitution while Saudi Arabia strictly bans it. That being said, it does not mean that countries that ban prostitution is completely rid of it. There are illegal pockets within these countries where prostitution operates, and sometimes even thrive.

The legalization of prostitution has many benefits. It benefits all the players concerned within the ambit of prostitution, which may include prostitutes themselves, clients and even the general public.

Though this point of view maybe questioned, there are certain possibilities that may prove so.

The legalization of prostitution may help the general public in the following ways

1. Regulation

   Legalization also means that there will be some form of regulation involved in the trade. This is because prostitution is not about trading non-living commodities, the subjects are human. Extreme care will be taken and the industry will be regulated. There will be checks for coercion, health status and other things

2. Taxable income

A taxable income perhaps is one of the best incentives the legalization of prostitution can provide. With the legalization of prostitution, the trade becomes legitimate and therefore taxable. Now when you do consider the fact that prostitution is quite a large industry, what you do have a really big addition to the national economy. The revenue generated can speed up socio-economic development in a country and help its citizens lead a much better life. With the taxable income, a lot more projects can be taken up and overall national development will happen on a much larger scale and with more money to spare.

1. Protection from Human trafficking

   With legalization comes regulation of the industry. Thorough background checks will be done to ensure the safety of the prostitutes. Background checks will happen to ensure that the prostitutes are not forced into a racket and that they are doing it out of their own will. Human trafficking is an issue that concerns many countries today and it makes countries look really bad. With such a move, you can curb human trafficking and look good at the same time.

2. Discretion

   Any country that legalizes prostitution ensures a few things and they include that prostitution is a private affair and there be no middlemen or pimps involved. They also ensure that there be no brothels operating where prostitution could be congregated. This avoids build-up of red-light areas and places where there could be a loss of control. This ensures some sort of discretion and somehow masks the prostitution in a city or in a country. Discretion will be practised and public nuisance can be somehow curbed.

3. Public health protection

   Background checks and regular medical examinations will be conducted in order to ensure that the prostitutes in the trade are disease-free and that the population is not affected by this. Government regulation will ensure that the prostitutes have the right education to deal with clients and they will be taught to use appropriate measures to deal with sexually transmitted diseases. Condoms will be provided by the government for free and this will ensure the upkeep of public health.

For these reasons, it is advisable that prostitution be legalized, this being in the interest of the general public.

Copyright © 2011 Ashwath Komath

Prostitution is more of a problem in conservative societies in countries like India than in countries where prostitution is accepted as a way of life. For example, the western world may not clamp down on prostitution like how it is clamped down in India and other more conservative societies.

But before the argument of legalization of prostitution is discussed, we must understand a few facts.

Prostitution exists and it will stay everywhere on the planet. There is not a single place where there is absolutely no prostitution. Even devoutly religious countries like Saudi Arabia has prostitution. Prostitutes in Saudi Arabia come from countries like Ethiopia, Eritrea and Pakistan. And how much ever the government tries to curb it, it still exists and it will exist. Stamping out prostitution is not possible. It will remain there legally or illegally.

Not all prostitutes go into prostitution out of force. Some prostitutes are in it by their own will. Some prostitutes believe that it is a great source of income and they think purely in terms of business.

Legalization will not only make prostitution legal, but it will also simultaneously bring in a form of regulation.

Most of the problems associated with prostitution emerges in countries where it is illegal and is unregulated.

Now coming to the argument. Prostitution needs to be legalized because

1. Prostitution is a profession like any other

   Like any other profession, prostitution is a profession. Prostitutes look at it in a very business and professional sense. It is their income. In fact, when it is legalized, the government needs to tax their income. It can be an income booster to the government which of course, it can use for socio-economic development of the state.

2. Legalization of prostitution will protect prostitutes

   Giving a legal status to prostitutes will protect them and give them legitimacy. They will be able to freely create unions and protect themselves from exploitation. They will have rights and they can rehabilitate themselves. They can collectively bargain for rights and benefits. There will be no middlemen or pimps that will exploit the prostitutes, there will be no brothels and prostitution will become a private affair.

3. Rapes will reduce

   In places where prostitution is tightly regulated, rapes are high. For example, in the Indian capital of Delhi, there is a high rate of rape. Coincidentally, they have a tight control on the prostitution there. This is because sexually frustrated men don’t have a place where they can vent their frustrations. When prostitution is legalized, men will turn to prostitutes with no fear of raids or whatsoever, thereby reducing rapes.

4. Legalization will reduce the health risks of prostitution

   Only when it is unregulated, diseases like AIDS and syphilis spread. When there will be regulation, authorities will ensure that all prostitutes will be educated about its ill-effects and they will be provided with condoms and other protective devices. Besides, regulation will make sure that prostitutes will have timely check-ups and treatments. Thereby, the health risks involved with prostitution will greatly reduce.

5. Legalization will ensure that there is lesser human trafficking involved

Legalization of prostitution involves a very comprehensive procedure of registration. There will be an exhaustive check of background to check whether the prostitute is being forced to get into the trade without her consent. Human trafficking can be controlled at this point and ensure that the prostitution business is clean and that nobody is forced against her will to get into the trade.

For all these reasons, prostitutions should be legalized.

Copyright © 2011 Ashwath Komath

As Planetary Citizens we are to be alarmed, outraged and ashamed that the dehumanizing practice of Human Trafficking and enslavement still goes on throughout the world in the 21st Century. Bondage, involuntary servitude and the criminal exploitation of one human being, or group of human beings by another is a form of barbarity that is unconscionable and should have no place among the activities of civilized people. In the face of so huge an abscence of compassion for our fellow man, not one of us can afford to be unconcerned. This criminality extends to and includes everything from domestic servitude to sex slaves and heinous child labor. This includes not less than 246 million exploited children between 5 and 17 years of age. The practice is endemic, ubiquitous and goes on in nearly every country on the planet.

The practice of enslavement has an unfortunately long and ugly history in the world. Stretching back into the past as far as 71 to 73 B.C.E (Before the Common Era) to the time when the Thracian Gladiator Spartacus led tens of thousands of Roman slaves to revolt against Imperial Rome, their fight for freedom led to thousands being crucified along the Appian Way. Yet resistance to enslavement and bondage has continued as long as these practices have continued: By 1495, historic “Discoverer” of America, Christopher Columbus transported no less than 500 Native Americans east across the Atlantic to enslavement in Seville, Spain. Then, in 1518, Bartolome’ de Las Casas, in order to help defend “Indian” rights and save Native Americans, called for large importations of African Slaves to the New World.

By 1542, Spain had outlawed the enslavement of Native Americans and by 1619, twenty Black slaves were brought by Dutch ship to the Colony of Virginia. The inherent immorality of human trafficking – from that time, until this very day, has been overlooked for the same reasons: greed and avarice. Human trafficking was then, and remains a lucrative industry, second only to the international drug trade in profitability. United Nations estimates run from 5 to 9 Billion US Dollars yearly. Two and one-half million people are trafficked from 127 countries to and through 137 countries worldwide each year. Debt bondage appears to be the most commonplace form of servitude practiced, with forced labor generating 31 Billion dollars worldwide.

The historic agonies over the issues of slavery and emancipation in the Americas has been thoroughly debated and fully documentated. In 1627, the British began settling Barbados and were producing sugar there on the cane plantations by forced labor. From 1630 to 1654, the Dutch and the Portugese fought over Salvador as part of the conquest of Portugese Brazil, while Dutch influence spread sugar cultivation throughout the Carribean.

In 1688, four Quakers signed an Antislavery petition in Germantown, Pennsylvania. In 1712, there was a slave uprisong in New York City, followed in ‘39 by the Stono rebellion of slaves in South Carolina, which likely sparked the conspiracy uncovered in ‘41 in New York, which led to both hangings and burnings at the stake. Nonetheless, the Spirit of Spartacus walked the lands of the Americas throughout the mid 1700’s: Though the British Government originally had prohibited slavery in Georgia in 1735, they reversed this and sanctioned slavery by 1750. By 1772, The Somerset decision was popularly interpreted as outlawing slavery in England. From 1773 – 79 Slaves in New England petitioned the legislature there for their freedom, and increasing numbers of anti-slavery tracts were published in America.

In 1775, 800 blacks took up Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia’s offer of freedom to any slaves willing to dessert their rebellious master’s plantations, and serve in the king’s forces. Two years later, the constitution of Vermont outlawed slavery and by 1780 Pennsylvania had adopted a gradual emancipation law. In 1783, the case of Commonwealth v. Jennison was interpreted as removing any judicial sanctions for slavery in Massachusetts. From 1784, when the Pennsylvania Abolition Society was formed,  to 1883 – 84, when the slaves of Northeast Brazil were freed by philanthropic purchase, the Brazilian abolitionist movement gained strength. During this same tumultuous 100 years, Jefferson Davis formed a Confederacy, Civil War (1861), broke out and abolition and rebellion scarred the US, and yet in 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was made the Law of the Land.

In 1864 Abraham Lincoln was reelected President over the Democrat John B. McClellan, and in the momentous year of 1865, General Robert E. Lee gave up Petersburg, while Black Union Troops freed the Slaves of Richmond Virginia, the Confederate Capitol; Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Lincoln was assasinated and Andrew Johnson became the  American President. Then the Thirteenth Amendment, permanently abolishing all forms of slavery was ratified and signed into law. In 1948, the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which set common goals for all nations and all peoples, declared in Article 4: “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.” Hence, slavery being still practiced in this the 21st Century anywhere on the globe has absolutely no leg to stand on, legal, moral or otherwise, and deserves no less than the severest condemnation from every Citizen of the Planet!

Vietnam, China, Libya, Somalia, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Chad, Burma; the list of countries that offer no hope or freedom to their own citizens is a long one. The accounts given by refugees of their experiences are harrowing, and many groups of people are over-looked by the international community.

One such group is made up largely of Eritreans and Ethiopians who have tried to escape their countries to find safety and a new life for themselves in Israel. However the journey is treacherous, and many hundreds have fallen into the hands of unscrupulous Bedouin tribesmen as they have tried to trek across the Sinai desert to get to their promised land.

Those who are caught are kept in squalid, inhumane conditions while their captors torture them in order to persuade them to contact relatives by mobile phone who are then put under pressure to transfer large sums of money into foreign bank accounts. Verified stories are told of torture by rape and electric cattle prods, with many people dying.

Image via Wikipedia

The Sinai falls within the jurisdiction of Egypt, and although the Egyptian authorities have been alerted to what has been happening under their eyes they have shut those eyes and deny that there is a problem.

Most of the refugees of course are young and include young children, the gangs having no thought for anything but extorting money from their anxious relatives. The captives are kept often in pits with no sanitation or health care and live in constant terror.

An excellent book that highlights the plight of people trying to escape repressive regimes is Leaving Tangier by Tahar be Jalloun. In it he vividly depicts the suffering young people have to endure to escape their dead-end existences in Morocco, and he also spells out what they have to endure if they succeed in crossing the narrow strip of water that separates Africa from Europe. Well worth a read, and although it’s about the Moroccan experience, you can substitute the name of many another country – maybe even your own.

You might also consider doing something about the situation in Sinai. A polite but firm letter to the Egyptian embassy in your country will make Egypt know that the world is aware of the suffering that they are doing nothing about. It’s reckoned that if a dozen or so letters arrive on an Ambassador’s desk he will start to think.

Escaping from the Slave Traders

     Tell It Like It Is a song video I wrote after hearing a Pastor Missionary speak on Human Trafficking. I was clueless on what that was, when I realized what was going on it pushed a button in me. I was enraged and didn’t want to believe what was happening to these innocent victims. Having been sexually, physically, mentally and emotionally abuse in a smaller way I could relate. I couldn’t even begin to phantom how the degradation of their self image would be with such entrapment. As I continued to listen I grabbed a piece of paper and started writing. Don’t know what I wrote I was so angry and numb at the same time, when it was over I left swiftly.

     After I got home I couldn’t get those thoughts out of my mind, snatched some paper and a pen words just kept coming and coming. As I wrote fiercely when it came to the chorus part all I could hear is, tell it like it is, Tell It Like It Is, TELL IT LIKE IT IS!!! Those words shouted at me from my sub consciousness, hearing Oprah Winfrey tell Jay Z August 19,2009, “…no, tell it like it is, you were raped!” Those words shook me to the core three months earlier, as I too had been through a similar experience in my foster home as a child. And within fifteen minutes I had a song with melody, words, chorus and hook about my heart felt anger against sexual abuse in hindsight.  

     As I continued to mull the song over hoping to find a reasonable studio to record in I kept searching and asking around. Much to my surprise I was invited to a small private Media Entertainment Party. As I mingled amongst very down to earth and caring people I finally met someone who had an insight on recording studios.  As we exchanged numbers and cards she was very uplifting, a well known actress who enjoyed singing as well and knew both the high end recording studios as well as the low end studios.  At that time human trafficking was a sore subject and not accepted very well. I’m so grateful for the critiques I received from my colleagues for I had some very strong words in the first version of the song. One friend suggested having an adult version and a general version because the words were so blunt. After all we are not living in the Leave To Beaver era, when it came to human trafficking language.

Selling Albino Body Parts, A Lucrative Business To The Unscrupulous

A court in Tanzania recently sentenced a man from Kenya to 17 years in jail. What was his offence? Answer is he was trying to sell an albino for a huge sum of money!

The Kenyan named Nathan Mutei was captured in an operation by police as he tried to sell a fellow Kenyan who is an Albino for the equivalent of about $250,000.

The albino named Robinson Mkwama was tricked by the unscrupulous Nathan Mutei that he would secure a job for him in Tanzania as a driver’s assistant. Robinson, believing this to be true followed him. And it was in the Tanzanian town of Mwanza that Nathan tried selling the albino.

In the sting operation, the police pretended to be businessmen that dealt in the purchases of albino body parts and it was when Nathan approached them to sell the albino Robinson that they swiftly arrested him.

Now, Robinson Mkwama was a very fortunate albino to have been rescued by the police while on the way of being sold. However, there are dozens of albinos who fall victim to unscrupulous traffickers every year. These unscrupulous businessmen traffic and sell these innocent albinos to middlemen who in turn sell their body parts to witch-doctors.

The albino trafficking business is a very lucrative business in countries like Kenya and Tanzania.

In Tanzania for instance, the body parts of innocent people who are living with albinism are used by witch-doctors or juju men for spiritual potions and ritual purposes. These witch-doctors tell their clients that it will help make them extremely wealthy and healthy.

The witch-doctors claim that albino body parts have special powers. This claim has therefore made albino body parts prized in some parts of Africa.

Several dozens of innocent albinos have been trafficked and killed as a result of this. The Tanzanian police force has made a pledge to crack down severely on albino traffickers, and this crackdown has seen so many traffickers jailed and some even sentenced to death over their horrific acts.

Human trafficking is the unlawful trading of human beings “for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation or forced labor”. In reality human trafficking is a form of modern day slavery with more sinister motives and capturing the lowest attribute of the human being.

Most of the trade is carried out in the Western world with their victims coming from poorer nations and involves sexual coercion and exploitation. Most of the victims are lured through the Internet with promises of a better life in the Western world.

Some are lured by the middle men recruited by the perverts to identify those to be exploited. Others particularly children, are kidnapped and stripped of their rights as they are moved away from their homeland and families.

Africans and Asians, where the victims are mainly from, have strong family ties and most of the victims will be lured with the promise that through them their families lives will be made better. Obviously they assume they are coming to do legitimate work.

Once they get to the country of destination they are hit with the reality that they are sex slaves and they have no way out. Their passport will be confiscated and they are warned not to talk to anyone. They will be made to do things they never knew existed with no right to say no.  

The Sad story of Lolita

This writer came across the story of a twenty six years old woman named Lolita who is a victim of human trafficking. Lolita’s story is heart rendering and will make you angry, sad, or ashamed to be associated with human beings that do such things to other human beings.

Lolita is from Nigeria and was lured to Europe through the Internet. She claims that the site had ”photos and stories of happy and successful marriages”. She answered a posting and the ”man contacted me and we started communicating via the Internet. He promised me things that no woman would refuse. A dream” and she was lured.  

Before living Nigeria, she was asked by her “fiancé” to pass through Benin city, also in Nigeria, to pick up a “ small parcel” . To her surprise the small parcel was actually three boys aged 8-12 years. The whole journey to Europe was suspicious because they left from Ghana where they were provided with Liberian passports.

The Liberian passports were apparently meant to help them “obtain refugee status with ease” in Europe. Lolita narrates of how one of the boys was so traumatized and clung to her until they were separated at the airport on arrival in Europe never to see each other again.

According to Lolita, she barely got to the house before the nightmare started. She says “My first hours on the English soil were marked with rape and violence on somebody’s living room floor. He took a rest, drank whiskey and came back to do those horrible and painful things that I didn’t even know existed, again and again. I thought I was going to die”

Unbeknown to her, this was to be her life and in worse ways than any human being could ever imagine. The man made sure that he kept all her papers and as such she could not escape. After being violently raped and abused she was then asked to watch porn movies with girls having sex with animals and study what the girl were doing.

The watching of the porn movies was for her education “because I was going to do the same soon. He said that my arrival had cost him a lot of money and I was going to have to pay him back”. After three weeks of arrival in England the girl had become “ a bestial porn star addicted to drugs”. Lolita was made to have weekly sessions with her masters dogs while his wife watched amused as she sipped her cocktail drinks.

Lolita continues in her narration and says “The worst moment came was when I was made to perform oral sex on these animals. Sex with the animals were unprotected and the man told me that I was not at risk since God had made sure that animals could not impregnate humans”.

To make things worse, the producer’s wife one day to “spice up the scenes—went and fetched puppies to suck my breasts. It was very painful because they sucked violently as there was no milk. The professionals sell these films across the world while others watch them during parties”.

Eventually Lolita did contract AIDS and as a result was abandoned by her pimp at the “beaches of Saint Tropez”. She is now in her terminal stages of the disease and is self destructing with drugs to speed up her death. The man who started this process, known only as Bryan, disappeared and changed his address.

In agony Lolita says “ No human being can live with what I have in my head. I only have to close my eyes for a few seconds for all the horrors to come rushing back. Everyday and every night I go through the same torture. I need someone to help me end it all, I have no energy in me to even try it. My God! I want just a moment of silence to rest. I just want it over and done with and just go, go, go…”.

When one reads a story like this, one is left wondering whether there is a special demon that operates in certain human beings. The western world prouds itself of it’s freedom which is why the porn business is so lucrative. One must also ask whether this freedom is the devil’s ammunition for destroying human beings. Somebody after reading this said that He is “convinced that the devil has his headquarters in the Western world”. Perhaps he is right for how else can one explain such things.

Read full story at http://www.afrik-news.com/article15535.html

You may also be interested in http://socyberty.com/issues/sex-trade-children-as-objects-of-trade/

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