Syria: Iraqi Refugees Turn to Sex Trade

Ben Stechshulte for The New York Times

At Al Rawabi, an expensive nightclub in Al Hami, customers can drink imported Scotch, smoke water pipes and watch a show featuring young Iraqi woman gyrating to a 10-piece band on a garishly lighted stage.

MARABA, SYRIA— Back home in Iraq, Umm Hiba’s daughter was a devout schoolgirl, modest in her dress and serious about her studies. Hiba, who is now 16, wore the hijab, or Islamic head scarf, and rose early each day to say the dawn prayer before classes.

But that was before militias began threatening their Baghdad neighborhood and Umm Hiba and her daughter fled to Syria last spring. There were no jobs, and Umm Hiba’s elderly father developed complications related to his diabetes.

Desperate, Umm Hiba followed the advice of an Iraqi acquaintance and took her daughter to work at a nightclub along a highway known for prostitution. “We Iraqis used to be a proud people,” she said over the frantic blare of the club’s speakers. She pointed out her daughter, dancing among about two dozen other girls on the stage, wearing a pink silk dress with spaghetti straps, her frail shoulders bathed in colored light.

As Umm Hiba watched, a middle-aged man climbed onto the platform and began to dance jerkily, arms flailing, among the girls.

“During the war we lost everything,” she said. “We even lost our honor.” She insisted on being identified by only part of her name — Umm Hiba means mother of Hiba.

For anyone living in Damascus these days, the fact that some Iraqi refugees are selling sex or working in sex clubs is difficult to ignore.

Even in central Damascus, men freely talk of being approached by pimps trawling for customers outside juice shops and shawarma sandwich stalls, and of women walking up to passing men, an act unthinkable in Arab culture, and asking in Iraqi-accented Arabic if the men would like to “have a cup of tea.”

By day the road that leads from Damascus to the historic convent at Saidnaya is often choked with Christian and Muslim pilgrims hoping for one of the miracles attributed to a portrait of the Virgin Mary at the convent. But as any Damascene taxi driver can tell you, the Maraba section of this fabled pilgrim road is fast becoming better known for its brisk trade in Iraqi prostitutes...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

Las Vegas: Brothel Bust in Million $ Neighborhood

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA -- Metro vice officers raid an alleged brothel in a million-dollar neighborhood overnight. And tonight, police are investigating whether the women inside may be victims of human trafficking.

On the heels of a lengthy prostitution investigation known as "Operation Doll House," Metro vice officers have raided 10 suspected brothels in the last few weeks. They tell the I-Team that the one last night in a half-million-dollar home appears to be the largest operation.

Metro investigators said that when they searched the house near Rainbow and Oakey, they found a suspected prostitute and "john" engaged. The home, they say, had all the hallmarks of a brothel -- a bed in every room, condoms, timers and lots of cash. Passports found inside indicate the men and women all came from Asia. Police arrested two people on prostitution charges..

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LasVegasNow.com

Scotland: Educating Boys on Prostitution

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND -- Young men in Scotland must be targeted in the fight against prostitution, according to a leading American feminist.

Janice Raymond (left), an executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, wants schoolboys to be educated about prostitution in an attempt to shape male attitudes towards pornography and sexual exploitation from an early age.

She said: "Young men are more aware of the issues, including prostitution and exploitation, and we need them to engage with our work.

"Men are part of the problem, not prostitution on its own."

Ms Raymond was speaking in Glasgow on Saturday night at the awards ceremony for Zero Tolerance, the anti-domestic violence charity, where she collected the International Woman Award...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT TheHerald.co.uk

India: Tackling Sex Trafficking Through "Maid Ban"

NEW DELHI, INDIA -- India will ban women under 30 from emigrating to work as domestic help in the Gulf and parts of Africa and Southeast Asia in a bid to curb sex trafficking, a report said Tuesday.

The move came after Renuka Chowdhury, the minister for women and children, said that overseas domestic workers had complained of being pushed into prostitution after their employers had seized their passports.

A ban will be "imposed on granting emigration clearance to women below 30 if they are seeking employment as housemaids," Chowdhury, who recently returned from Kuwait, was quoted by the Times of India as telling parliament.

An exception will be made for women who return to India on leave from their jobs and who wish to return to their employers, the ministry for Indians working abroad said.

Some 17 countries will be covered by the ban, which was aimed at halting the trafficking of women for prostitution, the newspaper reported...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT The Middle East Times

Special: Should Prostitution be Legal? New Website Explores Pro's + Con's

USA -- Should Prostitution Be Legal? ProCon.org Investigates the Selling of Sex With New Website

The D.C. Madam, 5 murdered women in Ipswich, and Hawaii House Bill 982 have aroused interest in the question of whether prostitution should be legalized.

ProCon.org launched its 10th website today, Prostitution ProCon.org, to bring much-needed clarity and balance to the debate over prostitution.

The world's oldest profession is treated as just another job in countries like New Zealand, where it is legal. Other countries, such as Iran, consider it a crime punishable by death. Prostitution is illegal in the United States, except in one state, Nevada, which permits individual counties to decide for themselves whether to legalize prostitution. So far, 11 counties have opted for legalization.

To help unravel the pros and cons of legalizing prostitution, ProCon.org examines all the surrounding issues, including: human trafficking, AIDS, brothels, red light districts, rape, violence, slavery, economics, religion, morality, and more.

Prostitution ProCon.org features over 200 expert sources from Presidential hopefuls Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton to Ann Landers, Heidi Fleiss, Susan B. Anthony, and the ACLU.

The Managing Editor, Kamy Akhavan, remarked on the project:

"The issue of legalizing prostitution comes up in debates year after year. When we tried to learn more about the issue, we found inaccurate data, biased presentations, hard-to-follow academic reports, and a general lack of reliable information on which to base an informed opinion. We were frustrated by the lack of info, and we thought that most people probably felt the same way. After 6 months of full-time research, we completed our Prostitution ProCon.org website. It is free, fair, and easy to use. Finally."

Some featured content areas include: -- Top 10 Pros and Cons on Prostitution -- Federal, State, and Nevada County Laws on Prostitution -- Comparison of Prostitution Laws in 26 Countries Strange but true facts that appear on our website include: -- In Japan, prostitution is illegal, but selling oral sex is legal. -- In Sweden, selling sex is legal, but paying for sex is illegal. -- Medieval lawyer Johannes Teutonicus defined a prostitute as a woman who has had sex with more than 23,000 men...

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE AT Sys-Con.com

Tenn: Human Trafficking Cases Tied to Nashville

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE -- At least three separate houses of prostitution that Metro Police have shut down this year were located in the same apartment complexes that were targeted in a Memphis FBI investigation that last year led to indictment of 12 individuals on federal human and sex trafficking charges.

The alleged leader of what the federal government maintains was a multi-state human trafficking and prostitution ring was also based in Nashville, according to court records.

Federal officials — including Nashville FBI officials — continued Tuesday to refuse to comment on what they described as an ongoing investigation into possible human trafficking in Nashville...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NashvilleCityPaper.com

Las Vegas: Where's the Promised Help for Prostitutes?

Trafficking lawyer and law professor, David Thronson, is concerned about the deportation status of the prostituted women rounded up during Operation Dollhouse last month.
He says: "We don't know where they are."

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA - On Sunday, April 22, Metro Police held a news conference at 3 a.m. to reveal the results of a two-year-old federal and local investigation into a prostitution ring.

Apart from the odd hour, the case was noteworthy because it would be the first major test of the Anti-Trafficking League Against Slavery (ATLAS), a federally funded group formed this year to protect women brought to the United States against their will or through deception.

More than two weeks later it remains unclear where the 25 women swept up in the case are - physically or legally.

But at least one partner in the newly formed league said the women were not given the help they needed, pointing to a failure in its freshman effort.

The women captured in the sting allegedly were working as prostitutes, while seven people, mostly men, ran the business, according to authorities. Most of the men and women came from Asia.

The anti-trafficking league's work rests on coordinating law enforcement agencies, often the first to come across foreign women forced into prostitution, with different social services and immigration law agencies.

The idea is to gain the women's trust, offer them food and shelter and interview them about how they came to the U.S. If it is determined that they might be victims of human trafficking, they are led through the process of applying for a special visa that allows them to stay in the U.S. and build new lives.

But the one member of the league with expertise in the issue of immigration law - David Thronson, one of the founders of the UNLV immigration law clinic - was never contacted to help determine the status of the women in the recent bust or to advise them of their rights.

Additionally, Metro officials stated in newspaper accounts and interviews that the women would be deported, only to be contradicted later by other members of the league quoted in the press as saying the women would not be deported.

Other contradictions and unanswered questions make this initial attempt at springing the group into action less than a success...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LasVegasSun.com

India: Nearly 3 Million Prostitutes

NEW DELHI, INDIA -- India's minister for women and child development said Tuesday the country has an estimated 2.8 million prostitutes and the number is rising.

Renuka Chowdhury presented a study on "Girls-Women in prostitution in India" to the lower house of Parliament. She said more than one-third of Indian prostitutes entered the profession before age 18, the Press Trust of India reported.

She told lawmakers her ministry runs homes to provide shelter, food, clothing, counseling, rehabilitation and other facilities to victims of commercial sexual exploitation. She said another project is being implemented to combat trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation.

READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE AT United Press International

N. Carolina: Legistlation Targets Human Trafficking

North Carolina State Representative Ellie Kinnaird
is sponsoring bills to defeat sex trafficking in her state

NORTH CAROLINA - A woman was locked in a house for two years as a servant. Another woman was held in a hotel and made to prostitute herself.

Both cases unfolded in North Carolina, say legal-aid lawyers and advocates for the poor.

Human trafficking, a practice that some call modern slavery, is one of the fastest-growing crimes in the world. The State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people a year are trafficked over international borders.

North Carolina is home to some of the victims, as well as the perpetrators.

For years, the crime has been unknown and rarely prosecuted. Victims, most of whom are foreign, are often deported when they are found, and their traffickers are never investigated, according to advocates for the workers. Many in North Carolina, including state Rep. Ellie Kinnaird, are working to bring human trafficking into the spotlight.

"These are not illegal immigrants," said Kinnaird, an Orange County Democrat. "These are kidnap victims. They are refugees. We've got to train police to probe, to investigate further."

Last year, Kinnaird sponsored legislation that made human trafficking a crime for the first time in North Carolina. Until then, it could only be prosecuted by federal officials. Now, she is sponsoring a bill that would pay for training for law enforcement and services for victims, such as shelter and legal representation...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT MyrtleBeachOnline.com

Legalizing Prostitution: A Solution? N. Kristof Opines

NICHOLAS KRISTOF for The New York Times - A number of you have commented on my blog that the way to address prostitution is to legalize it and encourage unions of sex workers, thus empowering prostitutes and enabling sensible regulation and health outreach programs.

In the context of countries like India and Cambodia where I've written about sex trafficking, that would be a bad mistake. Let me explain why.

There may be a sound argument for legalization and sex worker unions in Brazil and South Africa, perhaps even China. My sense is that in those countries many women genuinely choose to be prostitutes because of economic pressures or opportunities. But in India, I have yet to find a single woman who made that choice - every single one of them first entered after being forced by a trafficker, her parents, or her husband. Later, after they had been prostituted, some continued to sell their bodies voluntarily. But the initial entry into prostitution was invariably coercive.

That means that if you validate the red light districts, then the new entrants will continue to be trafficked into it. And in India we have had something of an experiment, in which the legalization model has failed.

In the effort to combat AIDS, a union was established of prostitutes in Shonagachi, a red light district in Calcutta (one of the places in my video reporting of a year ago). The union, DMSC, purports to represent prostitutes and to dignify sex work, and it argues that it's important to empower the women by offering them respect and acknowledging their choice of occupations.

A DMSC brochure, for example, states: "Like other entertainment workers of the world we use our brain, ideas, emotion and sex organs, in short, our entire body and our mind to make people happy. As entertainment workers, we seek governmental recognition and fulfillment of our just professional demands."

Among liberals in the U.S. and India alike, that model has been treated respectfully. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CARE have both shown support for that approach as a way to fight AIDS. I have lots of respect for both the Gates Foundation and for Care, and they do fantastic work around the globe--but in this case I think they've made a mistake.

The argument in favor is "harm reduction" - a sex worker union makes it easier to hand out condoms and educate women about AIDS. That's true to some extent, but the latest data we have actually show a rising degree of HIV among young prostitutes in Shonagachi. The data aren't good, but they don't demonstrate to me that the model works. In contrast, there is a health outreach model in Cambodia that really does reduce HIV and STD, through regular check-ups, without legitimizing the brothels and protecting them from raids. That's the direction to go in.

More broadly, many of the prostitutes from Shonagachi have told me that DMSC is just a front for the brothel-owners, a way of protecting them from raids and harassment. Likewise, the trafficking of young girls and forced prostitution seems as flagrant as ever in Shonagachi. That's also the judgment of two people whose anti-traffickng work I admire: Ruchira Gupta and Urmi Basu. Both live in Calcutta and see Shonagachi up close, and both oppose the legalization model. So even if DMSC achieved a mild reduction in HIV infection levels -
which it apparently hasn't - it comes at the expense of legitimating trafficking and modern slavery.

I'm particularly swayed by an argument of Ruchira's, based on the contrast with Bombay. Traditionally, the red light districts of Bombay and Calcutta have both been enormous, and Calcutta has DMSC while Bombay has in recent years seen more raids and harassment of brothels. The upshot is that Shonagachi is as big as ever and seems to have as much trafficking and more HIV than ever, while Bombay's red light district has shrunk dramatically. There still are some brothels in Bombay's red light district, but only a fraction of the number
there used to be.

Some skeptics say that the raids have only pushed prostitution out of Bombay's red light district and hidden it among neighborhoods throughout the city, making it more difficult to control trafficking and AIDS. There may be some of that. But if NGO's have trouble finding the brothels than customers do as well. And most estimates are that total prostitution in Bombay has come down a great deal because of the harassment.

In contrast, DMSC seems to legitimate a red-light district that is completely enmeshed with criminal gangs, trafficking and forced prostitution. The validation from DMSC probably makes it easier for police to take bribes from brothels to look the other way, and harder to order up raids and aggressive police coverage. So, quite apart from morality, it seems to me that Bombay's record comes out better than Calcutta's. Maybe legalization and sex worker unions can reduce HIV in Africa and Brazil where forced prostitution is less of a problem, but it doesn't work in India.

The model in the West that seems to have worked best is Sweden's, which involves decriminalization for prostitutes themselves, but seeks to crack down on pimping and on the demand side. By arresting customers, the Swedish model undermines the economics of prostitution, and it seems to have reduced the trafficking that one sees in the Netherlands and Germany.

Fundamentally, I think these kinds of disputes about legalization are a distraction in countries like India. Both left and right in the States do good work on trafficking, but the two sides can't even agree on what to call the issue. The left tends to refer to sex work and sex workers, to avoid stigmatizing people they want to work with. The right tends to use terms like
prostitution and prostitutes, to avoid euphemisms that validate such work.

One reason more hasn't been accomplished in the campaign against human trafficking is that the issue has become so polarized in the U.S. There's immense distrust and much less cooperation than one might expect. But the one thing everybody should be able to agree on is that whether or not prostitution should be legal for 18-year-olds who are on their own, it is appalling for 13-year-olds to be imprisoned in brothels and forced to sleep with customers.
And that is what is going on in countries like India.

SEE THE WHOLE ARTICLE AT NY Times Select

US: Brothel Bust Uncovers Huge Sex Slavery Ring

Sun Im An arrived in the United States in the mid-1980s from her native South Korea, uneducated, alone, with only a light grasp of English.

Several years later, she turned to prostitution to support herself and her young son, said her lawyer, Francisco Celedonio of New York City.

But it was her foray into the sex trade that eventually led to her arrest, Celedonio said.

In August 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they uncovered a network of brothels, masquerading as massage businesses, that stretched from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C., and included York County (PA), where women were kept as sex slaves.

ICE agents arrested nearly 40 brothel owners, operators, transporters and money handlers during the sweep.

An was among those arrested - criminal complaints filed by two U.S. Attorneys' offices in New York stated she was the owner and operator of Good Natural Spa, which was in the 4700 block of West Market Street in West Manchester Township.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT The York Daily Record

Myanmar: Poverty Drives Hidden Sex Industry

A street vendor in Myanmar sells condoms. An estimated 20-30% of
prostitutes here have HIV. (AFP/File/Khin Maung Win)

YANGON, MYANMAR -- Sandar was 13 years old when her mother talked her into selling her virginity to help pull the family out of poverty.

Two decades later and still far away from that goal, Sandar has been arrested for prostitution more times then she can recall, jailed twice, and forced to pay bribes or have sex with policemen in exchange for her freedom.

Her friend Sei Sar Nyo, who sits beside Sandar grasping her hand, has been beaten for asking clients to use a condom. Sei Sar Nyo's family no longer talk to her, and she faces regular abuse in socially conservative Myanmar.

Despite the hardships, Sandar, who gave one name only and is now 33, and Sei Sar Nyo, 25, laugh when asked what other job they would do.

Nothing else would pay so well, they say.

"I'm not interested in any other business," says Sei Sar Nyo. "If I worked in a company I would earn 30,000 kyat (about 24 US dollars) in a month -- in this job I earn that in a night."

These two women come from very different social backgrounds, but ended up in Yangon's underground sex industry for the same reason -- to support their families in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Both are now working during the day for international charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), but their nights are spent selling sex in the city's brothels, restaurants and karaoke bars...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT News.Yahoo.com

India/Nepal Border: 21st Century Slave Trade

Meena Khatum, right, had to fight against brothel owners to be reunited with her son, Vivek.

INDIA/NEPAL BORDER (Nicholas Kristof for the NYT)- Anyone who thinks that the word “slavery” is hyperbole when used to describe human trafficking today should meet Meena Khatun. She not only endured the unbearable, but has also shown that a slave trader’s greed sometimes is no match for a mother’s love.

Human trafficking is the big emerging human rights issue for the 21st century, but it’s an awful term, a convoluted euphemism. As Meena’s story underscores, the real issue is slavery.

Meena was kidnapped from her village in north India by a trafficker and eventually locked up in a 13-girl brothel in the town of Katihar. When she was perhaps 11 or 12 — she remembers only that it was well before she had begun to menstruate — the slaver locked her in a room with a white-haired customer who had bought her virginity. She cried and fought, so the mother and two sons who owned the brothel taught Meena a lesson.

“They beat me mercilessly, with a belt, sticks and iron rods,” Meena recalled. Still, Meena resisted customers, despite fresh beatings and threats to cut her in pieces.

Finally, the brothel owners forced her to drink alcohol until she was drunk. When she passed out, they gave her to a customer.

When she woke up, Meena finally accepted her fate as a prostitute. “I thought, ‘Now I am ruined,’ ” she remembered, “so I gave in.”

Meena thus joined the ranks of some 10 million children prostituted around the world — more are in India than in any other country. The brothels of India are the slave plantations of the 21st century.

Every night, Meena was forced to have sex with 10 to 25 customers. Meena’s owners also wanted to breed her, as is common in Indian brothels. One purpose is to have boys to be laborers and girls to be prostitutes, and a second is to have hostages to force the mother to cooperate.

So Meena soon became pregnant. The resulting baby girl, Naina, was taken from Meena after birth, as was a son, Vivek, who was born a year later.

The two children were raised mostly apart from Meena. Meena alerted the police to her children’s captivity (the police were uninterested), so her owners decided to kill her...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

India: Assam's missing women and the sex trade

Many of the missing women end up like these alleged arrested call girls

ASSAM, INDIA - The biggest problem in India's north-eastern state of Assam is separatist militancy. But it faces another, less well known issue. Thousands of its women, old and young, have gone missing over the past 10 years.

A recent police report says 3,184 women and 3,840 female children have gone missing in the state since 1996.

That's around two females a day on average.

The report was compiled by Assam police and their research branch, the Bureau of Police Research and Development.

The local police are far too busy, according to Assam police intelligence chief Khagen Sarmah, fighting insurgents.

"Our counter-insurgency commitments affects our normal policing duties like checking trafficking."

"Too many policemen are involved fighting the insurgents rather than following up on other crimes," Mr Sarmah said...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT News.BBC.co.uk

Israel: National service volunteer fights trafficking in women

ISRAEL - "Women trafficking and prostitution are one and the same, and the women who are exposed to both phenomena display similar symptoms," 21-year-old Naama Yehezkel says. As an activist for Isha L'Isha - the Haifa Feminist Center, which aids local and foreign women working in the sex industry, she should know.

"Women who engage in prostitution usually suffered sexual abuse or neglect at an early age. They're usually looking for a way to survive, and prostitution is just that - a means to survive, but not to live. Not in the full sense of the word, because the pimps know how to prey on them," she says.

Several weeks ago, Yehezkel toured the Tiberias hotel strip with volunteers from the Hotline for Migrant Workers. There, they handed out flyers and booklets listing emergency numbers for women who have fallen victim to human trafficking. They talked to hotel workers, kiosk employees and taxi drivers to find out where women were being exploited in the local sex industry...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT Haaretz.com

San Francisco: Sex Slave Figure Sentenced

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - A San Bruno man who admitted to hiring undocumented immigrant women to work as prostitutes in his South of Market massage parlor was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to a year in prison for money laundering.

Anthony Gar Lau, 46, operated Golden Flower Steam and Sauna Spa, one of 11 Asian massage parlors raided in July 2005 by federal agents who were investigating a Korean sex-trafficking ring.

Lau is among 29 people indicted by a federal grand jury in 2005 in connection with the raid. Investigators said the sex-trafficking ring allegedly brought young women from Korea and forced them to work as sex slaves in Asian massage parlors and unmarked apartments in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

During the "Operation Gilded Cage" raid, 104 Korean women were removed from 11 San Francisco massage parlors.

None of the 29 has gone to trial. Lau is the first among them to receive prison time.

Lau was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer to forfeit $1 million in income from Golden Flower Steam and Sauna Spa and to spend two years on supervised release after his prison term...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT SFGate.com

Mexico: Mex City's Refuge for Retired Prostitutes

A QUIET PLACE: Carmen Muñoz, director of Casa Xochiquetzal,
talks with a resident at the Mexico City group home that shelters
former sex workers who are at least over 65.
“There are many very sad life stories,” Muñoz says.

(Jennifer Szymaszek / For The Times)

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - Carmen Muñoz ticks off the basic facts of her life in a quiet, neutral voice that belies the horrors she has known:

Married at 12 to a man 10 years her senior. First-time mother at 14. Worked as a housecleaner while her husband spent his days idling, confiscating the few pesos she'd earned and burning her with cigarettes to keep her in line.

"What he liked was money and beating me up," she says of her former spouse. "He enjoyed making me bleed."

Then someone told Muñoz about a man who was willing to pay 1,000 pesos if she'd go to a certain hotel and do what she was told. Uncertain but desperate, she took the offer and began her new life as a sex worker.

"It was very difficult, but as soon as I began to see money, as soon as I saw that I had enabled my children to eat, the situation definitely changed for me," Muñoz says of those long-ago days.

Perhaps the only thing tougher than being a prostitute in this churning capital is being a prostitute in what Mexicans poetically call the tercera edad, literally the "third age," or "third stage of life."

Though technically illegal, prostitution is widespread in many parts of Mexico, often poorly regulated and still a taboo subject in this roughly 80% Roman Catholic country. In the past, sex workers who survived to their golden years could expect to be broke and living on the streets.

But for some of them, that may not be the case.

Since November, a number of elderly, retired sex workers here have found refuge in the Casa Xochiquetzal, a group home that is believed to be the first such facility in Latin America. Opened in a renovated historic building that once housed a boxing museum, the Casa was donated by the Mexico City government, which also is paying for the women's food, medicine and utilities. To be admitted to the free facility, an applicant must be at least 65, no longer active in sex work and be receiving no other aid.

For the 20 women who call it home, including two 85-year-olds, the Casa has been a godsend.

"Previously, my preferred saying was, 'In the end, we all end up in jail,' " says Muñoz, the home's director. "Today I say, 'In the end, we all end up in peace,' because for us this house is a place of peace, because it is ours."

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT LATimes.com

India: High School Girls Getting into High End Prostitution

Yet to pass out of teenage years, young girls are being pushed
by lifestyle demands into high-end prostitution

CALCUTTA, INDIA -- Riya (name changed) claims to be 18 years old but looks younger. She is wearing a body-hugging low-waist jeans and a white skintight cropped top that may look a little too screaming, but she could be a teen party-goer. Though Riya works at night.

She claims she is from New Delhi. The aspiring model says she is a first-year science student who has come to the city to follow up a modelling assignment. She services clients on the side. She can’t do so in New Delhi because her family stays there, but has clients in Mumbai too. Her rate for an evening — Rs 3,500 [approx. $82 US], out of which Rs 1,000 [approx. $29US] will go to the “contact” (read her agent).

But her agent Meera (name changed) has a different story. “She is very much from the city and goes to one of the high-end schools here. Otherwise her rate would be much higher. Girls from outside the city cost a lot more,” she says. “Most of the girls make up such stories,” she adds.

Mobile syndrome

Riya is not alone. Like her, more young girls, many of them “English-speaking” and allegedly from reputed schools, are joining the high end of prostitution to earn that extra buck. Much of it has to do with the demands of lifestyle.

“Student prostitution has increased in the last five to six years. Especially since the price of mobiles has gone down. It makes students more accessible,” says an NGO worker in the city who works with the floating population of women in prostitution...

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT TelegraphIndia.com

Japan: Historian Stands By Proof of Wartime Sex Slavery

Yoshiaki Yoshimi, historian who uncovered proof of wartime sex slavery

TOKYO, JAPAN -- It was about 15 years ago, recalled Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a mild-mannered historian, when he grew fed up with the Japanese government’s denials that the military had set up and run brothels throughout Asia during World War II.

Instead of firing off a letter to a newspaper, though, Mr. Yoshimi went to the Defense Agency’s library and combed through official documents from the 1930s. In just two days, he found a rare trove that uncovered the military’s direct role in managing the brothels, including documents that carried the personal seals of high-ranking Imperial Army officers.

Faced with this smoking gun, a red-faced Japanese government immediately dropped its long-standing claim that only private businessmen had operated the brothels. A year later, in 1993, it acknowledged in a statement that the Japanese state itself had been responsible. In time, all government-approved junior high school textbooks carried passages on the history of Japan’s military sex slaves, known euphemistically as comfort women.

“Back then, I was optimistic that this would effectively settle the issue,” Mr. Yoshimi said. “But there was a fierce backlash.”

The backlash came from young nationalist politicians led by Shinzo Abe, an obscure lawmaker at the time in the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who lobbied to rescind the 1993 admission of state responsibility. Their goal finally seemed close at hand after Mr. Abe became prime minister last September.

Mr. Abe said he would adhere to the 1993 statement, but he also undercut it by asserting that there was no evidence showing the military’s role in forcing women into sexual slavery. His comments incited outrage in Asia and the United States, where the House of Representatives is considering a nonbinding resolution that would call on Japan to admit unequivocally its history of sexual slavery and to apologize for it.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT NYTimes.com

UK: Victims Rufused Asylum Fall Prey to Prostitution

Medija, from Albania, was betrayed by a boyfriend
who forced her into the UK sex industry

UNITED KINGDOM -- Almost a year ago to the day residents of the Cornish city of Truro watched in amazement as police officers swooped on a house in a quiet street.

The operation was part of the national operation Pentameter, which aims to tackle exploitation within the sex industry.

Today the fight against sex trafficking continues as officers from the Devon and Cornwall force share information with other forces around the UK.

The UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) in Sheffield, Europe's first dedicated centre for victims of people-trafficking, was created in October last year.

It brings together a number of agencies including care organisations and the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) to tackle 21st Century slavery, as the UK marks 200 years since the Parliamentary Act which to abolish the slave trade.

Det Insp Martin Warren of Soca in Devon and Cornwall said that since the introduction of the UKHTC, work had been stepped up to identify and care for victims of human trafficking, which was now "commonplace" in the West Country.

...

The Poppy Project in London is one of the care organisations that works with the UKHTC, and has provided safe accommodation for victims of sex trafficking from the West Country.

Nineteen-year-old Medija, from Albania, is one such victim and this is her story:

"Before I was trafficked, I lived in a small town in Albania with my family.

I left school when I was 14 so I could work in the market with my father.

He was very worried all the time about money, and sometimes he would hit me.

While I was working I met a man called Guri.

He said he had seen me around and liked me. He became my boyfriend.

'Disowned me'

My parents did not approve and said I must choose between him and them. I decided to go and live with Guri, as I was tired of living in a small house.

After a few months he said he wanted to take me to live in Italy. I didn't want to go but my family had disowned me so I had no choice. I agreed to go.

Guri paid for my travel and we travelled by speedboat to Italy, where he gave me false Italian travel documents.

He said I would need them because the UK authorities were prejudiced against Albanians.

From Italy we travelled across Europe by coach to the UK, where we were met by a friend of Guri's.

He drove us to a house. That's when they told me that I would be working as a prostitute.

I screamed and cried and refused.

They beat me badly and raped me, and told me I had no choice. It was true.

I had sex with between five and ten men every day, seven days a week, working in saunas during the day and massage parlours some nights.

I was exhausted and often in pain, from all the men and from the beatings. I had no contact with my family and I was locked in the house all the time, only let out to go to work.

I lived like this for six months until the police raided the sauna.

They took me to the Poppy Project, who gave me shelter and are helping me recover from my experiences.

I still have many problems. I can't sleep and have nightmares, and sometimes I have panic attacks.

I am afraid of people and do not like to leave the house. I don't trust anybody.

I sometimes drink too much, to help me forget what happened. But it doesn't work. I will never forget what those men did to me. "

Heather Sable of Plymouth-based Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support Council, said Medija's plight was "just the tip of the iceberg" of human suffering created by human trafficking in the region.

Each week she and her volunteer workers tackle about 100 cases a week of refugees for whom a paid human trafficker was the only way to get out of their country of origin and into the UK.

Provision of false passports and travel documents all came as part of the illicit trade in humans.

The result when refugees appear in the UK