17.8.11
Support our awareness campaigns
Imagine a girl Esohe from Nigeria, kept inside a brothel in the Netherlands, and forced to have unprotected sex with up to thirty men a day. She fears being killed or beaten if she doesn’t comply, and she is scared to go to the Police because all her identification documents have been confiscated and she has no proof of who she is and the lives of her family back in Nigeria is at stake. Public enlightenment campaigns to educate people on how to recognize when slavery is taking place in their neighborhood and contact social services could be her only life line to get out of this inhuman condition. When she has a chance to flee, and she has no idea of where to go, an anti-human trafficking awareness campaign she comes across could provide her with the free 24 hours telephone number she can call for urgent help.
Support us to begin our anti-human trafficking awareness campaign in the Netherlands and all over the world to rescue trafficked girls out of sex slavery.
Donate today:
Stichting Center for Development and Cultural Interchange
Lodewijk Pincoffsplein 13
3071 AT, Rotterdam
ING Bank
Account number 5831558
16.8.11
500 True stories
According to a research done by Isoke Aikpitanyi a former trafficked victim in Italy, the Nigerian mafia collaborates with the Italian mafia in the trafficking of Nigerian women.
In her book titled '500 storie vere (500 true stories), she claimed that Nigerian girls who rebel against their madams (traffickers) are murdered or disappear without trace, and that there is a continious inflow of trafficked Nigerian girls some of whom are underage children into Italy daily.
These trafficked girls are forced to pay an average of 80,000 euros, and in order to pay this amount the girls are forced to have sex with as many men as they can find everyday. Even when they are sick, during heir menstrual period or pregnant, and regardless of the weather as they stand in the streets during winter to look for clients.
In addition, the girls are forced to have unprotected sex with clients against their will, and when pregnant the traffickers forcefully aborts the pregnancies against the will of these girls. These abortions are performed underground as the girls are not allowed to go to registered hospitals, so they are forced to go through painful abortion procedures that puts their lives at risk.
The book is a compilation of the stories of 500 trafficked victims in Italy, and according to the research, about 10,000 Nigerian female pimps or traffickers currently live in Italy, the largest in Europe compared to other countries.
Additionally, the traffickers force the girls to live underground and this makes it difficult for the trafficked girls to get assistance from social workers, and those that ever escape have been helped by their clients who had pity on them.
To order a copy of this book visit http://www.ediesseonline.it/catalogo/materiali/500-storie-vere
11.8.11
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed... I just want to do God's will. And he's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land". (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
8.8.11
Horrible life of Nigerian girls in Europe
This article is a must read, it tells of the horrible life of Nigerian girls in Europe.
By Flore-Murard Yovanovitch
Who among us has not seen? The roadside, with bras and stiletto heels. But behind these bodies, those who know their stories? Not free, but forced labor, prostitution, but is not chosen. “Prostitution”, not prostitutes; Nigerian deceived, enslaved, thrown on the sidewalks. Isoke Aikpitanyi, a former victim of trafficking and co-author of “The Girl in Benin City,” has created a national survey on the reality of Nigerian girls underwater: debts, traffickers and mafia networks that make possible today than slavery in Italy. From eyewitness accounts to create this beautiful book denouncing 500 true stories. On the trafficking of African women in Italy (Ediesse), with contributions from Roberto Saviano, Michael Nyman and musicians David McAlmont, former customers who now fight trafficking in the Association of Isoke.
In Benin City, hell began with the TV , a can of worms that propagate the myth of paradise European colonizing the African imagination. Poor girls, with families dependent on them, you are fooled by the promise of easy money, when they are not sold directly from fathers and relatives to Italos and bad Nigerian. If some of them “know”, the vast majority believes instead that Italy will find a real job. By contracting a debt between 40 and 80 thousand euros with the traffickers, they land in our town after traveling by desert, sea or air. Upon arrival, the wait for “Maman” , a misleading name to indicate the real pimp women: women who exploit the body of other women. Their passports confiscated and thrown in the street. The logic of overwhelming debt, the ramifications of the extended control of “slaves” of communities and associations Nigerian el’omertà do the rest. Even the churches “black” are complicit! When no direct gang leaders, pastors are corrupt, through the manipulation of traditions and voodoo , keep those girls subjugated. Threats, reprisals and terrible punishment, often fatal, are the ultimate deterrent. Nigerian women are terrified to rebel.
You can not escape the market. To repay their terrible debt, and growing, they are forced to undergo at least 3000 sexual performance (a single performance standard car costs 25 euros). In a daily life because of violence and insults like “nigger”, “now I get settled,” “That’ll teach ‘… Italian decent, real rapists pay. The body of the weak woman, black and otherwise, the outburst of all diseases and sexual deviancy, the brutal combination of sexism and racism. And off beat, torture, tortures, the simple reading of those pages is monstrous.
Rape is a constant, in the “trade”: there is a girl who has suffered not one, but the rapes (including group) unreported and unpunished. As summarized Isoke, with a paradox: “Every African is raped saved an Italian.” Their skin shows bruises and cuts, signs of belt and cigarette burns, said perforated uteruses craft and abortions (50% of them had an abortion at least once at home), because in the absence of treatment, for fear of repatriation, the emergency room only if we end up half dead. Injuries underground, underwater.
But the deeper are the scars of the mind. As Angela says, “we end up getting sick in the head.” And even those who manage to leave then have great difficulty in returning to live their sexuality as pleasure and play, in stable relationships. The devastation is added to the effects of childhood sexual mutilation and drama, which often occurs, they had to abandon their babies in Nigeria or in Italy.
It takes courage, time, and dare to challenge the racketeering complaint. So are stories of real rebellion. How to Isoke, reduced in a coma for a punitive expedition. Or Erabor to that, he denounced his captors, was massacred, literally “scalp”. Other, simply because he said no, we have brought to the skin: their bodies abandoned in the suburbs and landfills. Every year dozens of women (200 in the last two years) disappear, but they are not even a clandestine black spot on the front pages of newspapers.
Yet, more and more girls who, thanks to Isoke in his book and the Association victims and former victims of trafficking are ways out. There is a growing perception that the use of rituals voodoo mafia is a lie, that maman are criminals and traffickers to be sent to jail, and that, with complaints and a path to membership in homes, we can finally deliver. Coming to conquer and defend those “rights that the Italians do not want to defend,” Saviano writes.
The ex-slaves, immigrants, are now active players, they know the solutions to their problems and can offer real support to victims, help at times most effective of Italian associations and social services, which might allow the release of hiding, but not by the mechanisms of trafficking. Meanwhile, a real alternative is the work of self-awareness and awareness of customers, key link in the chain of consumption / exploitation, which could lead to a halving of the victims suffered, that in Italy today are about at least 20,000 and younger and younger ages. That men read this book. What to read it all.
By Flore-Murard Yovanovitch
Who among us has not seen? The roadside, with bras and stiletto heels. But behind these bodies, those who know their stories? Not free, but forced labor, prostitution, but is not chosen. “Prostitution”, not prostitutes; Nigerian deceived, enslaved, thrown on the sidewalks. Isoke Aikpitanyi, a former victim of trafficking and co-author of “The Girl in Benin City,” has created a national survey on the reality of Nigerian girls underwater: debts, traffickers and mafia networks that make possible today than slavery in Italy. From eyewitness accounts to create this beautiful book denouncing 500 true stories. On the trafficking of African women in Italy (Ediesse), with contributions from Roberto Saviano, Michael Nyman and musicians David McAlmont, former customers who now fight trafficking in the Association of Isoke.
In Benin City, hell began with the TV , a can of worms that propagate the myth of paradise European colonizing the African imagination. Poor girls, with families dependent on them, you are fooled by the promise of easy money, when they are not sold directly from fathers and relatives to Italos and bad Nigerian. If some of them “know”, the vast majority believes instead that Italy will find a real job. By contracting a debt between 40 and 80 thousand euros with the traffickers, they land in our town after traveling by desert, sea or air. Upon arrival, the wait for “Maman” , a misleading name to indicate the real pimp women: women who exploit the body of other women. Their passports confiscated and thrown in the street. The logic of overwhelming debt, the ramifications of the extended control of “slaves” of communities and associations Nigerian el’omertà do the rest. Even the churches “black” are complicit! When no direct gang leaders, pastors are corrupt, through the manipulation of traditions and voodoo , keep those girls subjugated. Threats, reprisals and terrible punishment, often fatal, are the ultimate deterrent. Nigerian women are terrified to rebel.
You can not escape the market. To repay their terrible debt, and growing, they are forced to undergo at least 3000 sexual performance (a single performance standard car costs 25 euros). In a daily life because of violence and insults like “nigger”, “now I get settled,” “That’ll teach ‘… Italian decent, real rapists pay. The body of the weak woman, black and otherwise, the outburst of all diseases and sexual deviancy, the brutal combination of sexism and racism. And off beat, torture, tortures, the simple reading of those pages is monstrous.
Rape is a constant, in the “trade”: there is a girl who has suffered not one, but the rapes (including group) unreported and unpunished. As summarized Isoke, with a paradox: “Every African is raped saved an Italian.” Their skin shows bruises and cuts, signs of belt and cigarette burns, said perforated uteruses craft and abortions (50% of them had an abortion at least once at home), because in the absence of treatment, for fear of repatriation, the emergency room only if we end up half dead. Injuries underground, underwater.
But the deeper are the scars of the mind. As Angela says, “we end up getting sick in the head.” And even those who manage to leave then have great difficulty in returning to live their sexuality as pleasure and play, in stable relationships. The devastation is added to the effects of childhood sexual mutilation and drama, which often occurs, they had to abandon their babies in Nigeria or in Italy.
It takes courage, time, and dare to challenge the racketeering complaint. So are stories of real rebellion. How to Isoke, reduced in a coma for a punitive expedition. Or Erabor to that, he denounced his captors, was massacred, literally “scalp”. Other, simply because he said no, we have brought to the skin: their bodies abandoned in the suburbs and landfills. Every year dozens of women (200 in the last two years) disappear, but they are not even a clandestine black spot on the front pages of newspapers.
Yet, more and more girls who, thanks to Isoke in his book and the Association victims and former victims of trafficking are ways out. There is a growing perception that the use of rituals voodoo mafia is a lie, that maman are criminals and traffickers to be sent to jail, and that, with complaints and a path to membership in homes, we can finally deliver. Coming to conquer and defend those “rights that the Italians do not want to defend,” Saviano writes.
The ex-slaves, immigrants, are now active players, they know the solutions to their problems and can offer real support to victims, help at times most effective of Italian associations and social services, which might allow the release of hiding, but not by the mechanisms of trafficking. Meanwhile, a real alternative is the work of self-awareness and awareness of customers, key link in the chain of consumption / exploitation, which could lead to a halving of the victims suffered, that in Italy today are about at least 20,000 and younger and younger ages. That men read this book. What to read it all.
African girl forced to work 18 hours a day seven days a week without pay
An African girl who was forced into slavery has been rescued by the Canadian Police in Vancouver. The girl was promised a hair Salon job in Canada, but as soon as she arrived in the country her passport was ceased and she was locked up in a house, where she was made to work for 18 hours daily, seven days of the week without pay.
For more on the story visit: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Human+trafficking+charge+laid/5208703/story.html
5.8.11
France is a destination country for women and girls trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation
France is a destination country for women and girls trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation from Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Cameroon, and Malaysia and other Asian countries. Men, women and children continued to be trafficked for the purposes of forced labor, including domestic servitude, many from Africa. Often their “employers” are diplomats who enjoy diplomatic immunity. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009.
For more of this news visit: http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/France.htm
The State does not help trafficked victims
I found this news from the Netherlands Helsinki Committee website, http://www.nhc.nl/. It's about a report done by a ASTRA, a Serbian NGO.
For trafficked victims the hell does not end when they get out of the trafficking chain. According to extensive research that has been done for the last 10 years by Serbian anti-trafficking NGO ASTRA budgetary allocations for victim assistance do not exist when putting aside salaries of the employees in the institutions that should be working on improvement of the aid for trafficking victims. ASTRA recently published a Ten-Year Report on Human Trafficking in Serbia which concluded that the Serbian government does not provide sufficient, efficient, nor systemically organized support to trafficking victims.
The Report covers the period 2000-2010 and explains that one of the greatest problems that is faced by trafficking victims is insufficient physical safety and the impossibility to find a job after getting out of the trafficking chain and thus provide for themselves and their families. Trials against traffickers are too long, making it difficult for victims to rebuild their lives after the traumatic experience they have survived.
According to ASTRA victims are under great pressure since they are expected to recover instantly from everything they have survived, testify against the traffickers and make them go to jail. One of the recommendations in the Report is to simplify the procedure for victims’ for obtaining financial social assistance and to improve their access to health care.
Source: www.astra.org.rs/eng/?p=893
ASTRA is currently implementing a 3-year MATRA project called 'Promotion of the Rights of Trafficked Persons in Serbia with Emphasis on Legal Support – A Human Rights Based Approach', together with the Netherlands Helsinki Committee.
Through this project the project partners aim to improve the human rights of trafficked persons in Serbia by timely informing the victims of their rights as victims and witnesses. The project also aims at proper representation of victims in criminal and civil procedures.
One of the activities is an intensive training for a group of 30 lawyers from all over Serbia in proper representation of trafficking victims in criminal, civil and other proceedings before domestic and international courts.
For trafficked victims the hell does not end when they get out of the trafficking chain. According to extensive research that has been done for the last 10 years by Serbian anti-trafficking NGO ASTRA budgetary allocations for victim assistance do not exist when putting aside salaries of the employees in the institutions that should be working on improvement of the aid for trafficking victims. ASTRA recently published a Ten-Year Report on Human Trafficking in Serbia which concluded that the Serbian government does not provide sufficient, efficient, nor systemically organized support to trafficking victims.
The Report covers the period 2000-2010 and explains that one of the greatest problems that is faced by trafficking victims is insufficient physical safety and the impossibility to find a job after getting out of the trafficking chain and thus provide for themselves and their families. Trials against traffickers are too long, making it difficult for victims to rebuild their lives after the traumatic experience they have survived.
According to ASTRA victims are under great pressure since they are expected to recover instantly from everything they have survived, testify against the traffickers and make them go to jail. One of the recommendations in the Report is to simplify the procedure for victims’ for obtaining financial social assistance and to improve their access to health care.
Source: www.astra.org.rs/eng/?p=893
ASTRA is currently implementing a 3-year MATRA project called 'Promotion of the Rights of Trafficked Persons in Serbia with Emphasis on Legal Support – A Human Rights Based Approach', together with the Netherlands Helsinki Committee.
Through this project the project partners aim to improve the human rights of trafficked persons in Serbia by timely informing the victims of their rights as victims and witnesses. The project also aims at proper representation of victims in criminal and civil procedures.
One of the activities is an intensive training for a group of 30 lawyers from all over Serbia in proper representation of trafficking victims in criminal, civil and other proceedings before domestic and international courts.
Human traffickers responsible for the death of 25 African migrants
Italian officials began questioning Tuesday six suspected human traffickers in connection with the deaths of 25 African migrants who suffocated on a refugee boat off Lampedusa, news reports said.
The six men, who are Moroccan, Syrian and Somalian nationals, were allegedly in charge of the boat which left Libya over the weekend carrying around 300 people, the ANSA news agency said.
The bodies of the 25 victims - all men - were discovered in the vessel's engine room by Italian coast guard officials who intercepted it early Monday morning.
At least two of the bodies bore marks of beatings and other signs of violence which are believed to have caused their deaths, prosecutor Renato Di Natale was quoted as saying by ANSA.
According to reports from some of the 271 survivors who were taken ashore to Lampedusa, those who died had been prevented from reaching the deck after the air down below had become unbreathable due to engine fumes.
When the men tried to get out they were allegedly beaten by the five suspects. Investigators were also looking into reports that the five also threw one of the migrants overboard.
Most of the migrants hailed from sub-Saharan Africa.
In April, more than 250 migrants died in a shipwreck some 39 nautical miles (72 kilometres) off Lampedusa.
Italy, and mainly Lampedusa, which is only 130 kilometres off the Tunisian coast, has again become a main destination of refugees and migrants since the start of the revolutions in North Africa earlier this year.
Since January, 33,000 people have arrived on the island of just 20 square kilometres
Culled from: http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1654480.php/Human-traffickers-suspected-in-deaths-of-25-migrants-off-Lampedusa
2.8.11
Scientist ‘kept girl of 21 as a slave’
www.thesun.co.uk
A SCIENTIFIC researcher used a 21-year-old she flew in from Africa as her unpaid slave, a court heard yesterday.
Rebecca Balira is alleged to have forced Methodia Mathias to cook, clean and wash for her while using her as a nanny to her three kids.
The Tanzanian had been promised a £96-a-month salary, but was never paid, London's Southwark Crown Court heard. Jurors were told she was punched when she displeased her boss.
The court also heard that Ms Mathias was stripped off here passport and banned from contacting her family or friends.
Her six-month ordeal only ended when she eventually opened up to a friend and police were called in to investigate.
Caroline Haughey, prosecuting, told the court: "She was required to get up at 5am in the morning and prepare both breakfast and lunch for Mrs Balira, then upon Mrs Balira's departure she was required to wake and tend the children, take the two eldest to school, look after the youngest, clean the house, take the youngest to nursery in the afternoon, wash the clothes by hand, collect the children, cook the evening meal for the children, and then separately for Balira.
"She would then finish the housework going to bed late into the night often 11.30 or midnight.
"During this time Ms Mathias did not receive a penny for her work nor did she have a day off work save on Sunday mornings when she was permitted to attend church."
The court also heard that Ms Mathias had to walk home after the service while Balira and her kids to the bus.
Balira, 47, of Thamesmead, South London, is studying at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She denies trafficking a person for exploitation and holding another in servitude. Case continues.
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