Diana Scimone

3 Cheers for Dr. Phil

I just watched Dr. Phil's excellent program on child trafficking.

Kudos to him for telling the difficult stories.  He focused almost the entire hour on what's happening in the U.S.  As you've read many times on this blog, child trafficking isn't just across the globe but across the street.  This is not just an occasional problem. 150,000 kids are lured into child slavery in the U.S.--every year.  

"I want people outraged by this," Dr. Phil announced--and he was pretty outraged by the stories told by brave young women who appeared on camera. 

"Who are the buyers?" he asked.  

An FBI special agent provided the answer:  "They're everybody's husband, father, and son.  Some of them are pretty high-level guys."  Yet, she said, hardly any buyers are ever arrested.  That, of course, has got to change.

There was a moving story shared by a young woman named Maria.  You can read more of her story here. It falls into the category of "Just when I think I've heard the worst story..."

Dr. Phil ended by giving 5 signs that a young person may be held against their will.

To learn what PawPaw's Pals is doing to stop child trafficking, click here.  Got comments?  Tell us what you think here.

If you went to the premiere today of Call + Response, leave a comment and let us know what you thought.

Need Some Good News Today?

There's a great article in The Washington Times today about U.S. efforts to end human trafficking globally and locally. Ambassador Mark Lagon, director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, shares some success stories and encouraging statistics, including these:  

• More than 400 children have been rescued from pros titution through the Innocence Lost Initiative, a joint federal and state effort sponsored by the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, the FBI, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  

• Since 2001, the DOJ and U.S. Attorney's offices prosecuted 156 trafficking in persons cases, securing 342 convictions and guilty pleas.  (The numbers are going up each year.)      

• More than 300 people have been convicted for human trafficking and related offenses since the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2003.  

• 39 states now have anti-trafficking statutes.

So if you need some good news today, think about all those kids (and adults) who've been rescued and given the chance for a new life (and all those traffickers now behind bars).  Pretty good, huh?

Share your reaction to this news by posting a comment below or on the blog site.

How to Stop the Traffic--Now

When I tell people what trafficked kids go through, one of the first things they say (after they can speak again) is, "What can I do?"

Here's something you can do.  Preferably now. (Next week is too late.)

Three months ago I blogged that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) was awaiting reauthorization by the U.S. Senate.  The House already passed it last December by a vote of 405-to-2.

In less than a week, Congress adjourns for the rest of the year.  They need to reauthorize TVPA--with a few tweaks that include prosecuting traffickers--before they do.  TVPA went into effect in 2000 and is the first major comprehensive U.S. legislative effort to address the global epidemic of human trafficking--and it's making a difference.

Will you send 2 emails or make 2 calls?  Find your senators' email and phone here.  Read about the tweaks and talking points here. 

With all attention on the financial bail-out bill before Congress, we need to make sure TVPA doesn't fall through the cracks.  Thanks.

5 More; Almost There

We're almost there -- our top 21 ways that you can stop child trafficking.  Here are 5 more:

16. Write about the realities of child s ex slavery in an article or letter to the editor for your local newspaper (print or web edition).

17. Email your state or federal legislators asking what they're doing to stop child trafficking.  Click here for U.S. senators and representatives.

18. Talk to your school, university, church, or community organization about sponsoring a Not For Sale day, and invite a local child advocate to speak.  Collect donations for the Not For Sale Project.

19. Post instances of human slavery around the world--including child se x slavery--on the Slavery Map.

20. Donate to organizations that work to stop child trafficking, such as PawPaw's Pals.  You don't need to be a millionaire to be a philanthropist.  $25 will go a long way. 

OK, I promised 21 ways--and that's just 20.  You'll have to wait til next month for the 21st way.  Yes, it's a surprise.  So watch this space....

10 Down; 11 To Go

Here are 5 more ways you can help stop child s ex slavery (scroll down to read the previous 10 ways, or click here and here):

11. Forgo birthday, Christmas, holiday, or wedding presents.  Instead, ask friends and family to give gifts in your name to the Not For Sale child-trafficking awareness project.  Your gifts will put books and other awareness materials into the hands of kids, parents, and teachers all over the world.  (That lasts a lot longer and is more life-changing than a toaster or tie.)

12. Pick a country and take an immersion trip to acquaint yourself with what's happening in the child-trafficking industry.  Make appointments to meet with local and international organizations working to stop the traffic.

13. Introduce Not For Sale to foundations or corporation that might like to support our work.  If your employer matches donations, let us know.

14. Educate yourself on what's happening in countries where you travel, study, or do business.  The U.S. State Department TIPS (Trafficking in Persons) List ranks 150 countries according to their efforts to end trafficking.

15. Blog.  Got a blog?  Post stories about the realities of child trafficking and efforts to stop it.  Add a link to any of the posts on this blog.

Watch this space for 5 more ideas...

Let Me Count the Ways

Here are 5 more ways we can help stop child trafficking (scroll down for the first batch):

6. Set aside part of your vacation to volunteer with an organization that works to stop trafficking or helps victims. Whatever your skills--medical, counseling, administration, legal, or education--they're needed somewhere.

7. Display an anti-trafficking poster in your school, church, or office. Download posters (in English, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Chinese, and Korean) here.

8. Organize a fund-raising party for the Not For Sale child-trafficking awareness project, and invite your friends, family, and co-workers. (Contact us for more information.)

9. Write an article or letter to the editor about the realities of child sex slavery. Send it to your local newspaper's print and web editions.

10. Flex your political muscles. When you learn about proposed legislation, such as the annual bill in the US to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, contact your congressional representatives. Click here to find email addresses and phone numbers for US senators and representatives.

Want more ideas? Watch this space....

Yup, It's Time

Time, that is, to end the outrageous amount of human trafficking that takes place on the internet (including on sites that you and I visit regularly).

I learned more than I care to know about the subject when I participated in a live online presentation sponsored by the End Internet Trafficking Coalition.  You can watch it or download the notes here.

EITC is a partnership of organizations that might never cross paths--everyone from the National Organization for Women to the Salvation Army.  They're all concerned about the proliferation of online human trafficking--and are working together to do something about it.

Here are some of the highlights of the online presentation (or low-lights, depending on how you look at it):

• Slavery is illegal everywhere in the world--yet more people are enslaved today than any time in history.
• Internet trafficking includes not just forced pros titution but forced slavery, mail-order brides, child po rn, s ex tourism, slave labor, and more.
  
• Weak laws and lax enforcement mean trafficking is less risky for perpetrators.
• Internet child trafficking is organized crime.
• 20,000 por nographic images of children are posted on the internet--each week.  Most come from eastern Europe.  (That's why PawPaw's Pals is networking with organizations that work in eastern Europe to stop child trafficking.)
• In one orphanage alone, 30% of the kids said they'd been approached by someone outside asking them to participate in child po rn.
• Craigslist continues to be a major source of human trafficking.  Every 10 days, 25,000 new ads are posted on the site promoting some form of trafficking.
• Social networking sites are also a prime source for human trafficking.
• Child trafficking through the internet happens not just "over there" but all over the US--probably in your own town.

EITC also has a web forum where you can download articles, find volunteer opportunities, and network with others around the world who are working to stop child (and adult) trafficking.

I think it's time, don't you?

Comforting Comforters--Part 2

I'm still thinking about a story I heard yesterday on live internet radio. 

John Stanko's guest on Your PurposeQuest was Bruce Binkley.  Bruce is from Dallas, but I met him in Zimbabwe in 2005.  It was right after Operation Restore Order, the Zim government's euphemistic phrase for rounding up 220,000 street kids and dumping them in the countryside.  (Nice, huh?)

So where are all these kids?  I visited an AIDS orphanage and met about 40 of them (pix in the Zimbabwe photo album to the left or here if you're reading this by email)--but where are the rest?

Now I know where at least some of them are.  Bruce was in Zim 2 weeks ago and went to a "resettlement community" where he discovered more than 2,100 kids shivering, without shoes, blankets, or proper clothing.  (It's winter there right now.)  No food, no bathrooms, no running water.

You have to hear Bruce tell what happened and how he provided blankets for all of them. (Go here and click on the 7/30/08 show.)   

It's a great story of encouragement, faith, and perseverance.  (Sort of motivating for someone who's, say, trying to raise $500K for her campaign to stop child trafficking...)

Keep in mind that Zimbabwe has a huge child trafficking problem (more here; scroll to page 264).  A quarter of a million children uprooted and living on their own who-knows-where is not a good thing.  If you'd like to do more to help these kids, many of whom are AIDS orphans, you can contact Bruce here.

"I'm not selling women so much now. Mainly just children."

Oh great.  "Just children."

Those are the words of a child trafficker in China who shares about his gruesome enterprise on the recent HBO documentary, "China's Stolen Children."  The program is about how China's one-child policy has created a booming trade in stolen children (among other horrific practices).

You can watch the trailer here:

Or you can see the entire documentary here (if you can stomach it).

As many as 70,000 children a year are snatched from the streets in China and sold by organized crime syndicates. The filmmakers worked undercover to put together this report; they even changed SIM cards after every phone call to avoid being detected as they shot the documentary.

I haven't watched all of it, but will.  What I did watch made me realize yet again the value of our Not For Sale child-trafficking awareness project. Once we've completed the Not For Sale materials and start distributing them around the world, we can warn--ahead of time--grieving parents such as the ones on this documentary whose children were snatched away from them.  As in every other area where child trafficking is a problem, we can tell them (and their children) about the dangers of trafficking and what to watch for. 

We have the ability to effectively slash the rate of child trafficking--and keep many more kids and parents from going through this nightmare.

If you'd like to help us complete this project and get the awareness materials into the hands of parents and kids around the world, you can donate by clicking here.

How Much Is a Little Girl Worth?

Here's an excerpt from my article, How Much Is a Little Girl Worth, which In Touch magazine just published on their website:

The fans whirled above our heads as we sat around a bamboo table in a safe house in northern Thailand.  We were just a few miles from the border with Myanmar (Burma).

As I talked and played games with eight little girls—many of whom had come across that border illegally—it was difficult to imagine the life from which they had been rescued.  Here, they were safe and secure, cared for by loving houseparents who helped them heal from the traumas they had endured.

Their home, a gated compound of three houses, is situated on a lonely dirt road outside of town. The remote location and security are necessary because these girls are still property in the eyes of the men and women who once owned them. If the girls are ever found, the traffickers who paid good money for them could forcibly reclaim their "investments."

How much is a little girl worth?  To a child sex trafficker, about $300.  That's what he'll pay to buy her, knowing he'll recoup his money and more—if she doesn't die of AIDS first...

You can read the rest of the article here.  

How to Buy a Child in 10 Hours

Last month, Dan Harris took a 3-1/2 hour flight from New York to Haiti to buy a child slave.  Within 10 hours of leaving his office in New York City, Harris had 3 separate offers to buy a 10-year-old child.

Harris is a correspondent with ABC News and he caught it all on hidden camera for a special edition of ABC's "Nightline," which airs in the U.S. this Tuesday, July 8. (If it's available on the web after that, I'll post a link to it here.)

One broker promised Harris that he would personally train the child.  Another promised a "pretty" girl and offered to provide false adoption documents to allow the child to be taken out of the country.  Prices ranged from $150 to $10,000.

Harris interviews child slaves and their "masters," and explores the dire conditions that drive many rural families to send their children to live in urban households with the often unfulfilled promise of a better life and an education.  He also follows the heroic efforts of one mother to retrieve her child from slavery.

Haiti has 300,000 child slaves. The problem isn't confined to that country, of course.  Each year 1 million children are trafficked around the world--that's in addition to those already enslaved.

Imagine what a huge dent we could make in this pandemic if we could simply warn parents about the dangers of child trafficking and slavery.  That's the goal of our Not For Sale child-trafficking awareness campaign--to educate children, parents, and teachers about the dangers of trafficking, with the ultimate goal of ending it.  If you'd like to contribute toward this effort, click here.

The "Nightline" special airs at 11:35 p.m., Tuesday, July 8, in the U.S.  If it's available on the web after that, I'll post the link here.

Not For Sale: Some Exciting Updates

There's lots of exciting news to report about our Not For Sale child-trafficking awareness campaign.

• I've finished writing the 1st book for the Not For Sale campaign.  Now illustrator Leah Wiedemer and I are at work on the 2nd component of the project:  taking that same plot and turning it into a wordless picture book.  That's what we'll distribute (without charge, of course) to at-risk kids in high-trafficking areas around the world.

Why wordless?  So we don't have to translate it into 100s of languages (saving time and $$$). Leah's illustrations are adorable, BTW.

• While Leah draws, I'm writing the 3rd component in the Not For Sale campaign:  a companion curriculum to go with the wordless book.  We'll give it (free of charge) to schools, churches, non-profit organizations, and others who work with kids around the world to help teach the important concepts in the book.

• PawPaw's Pals plans to open our first international office--in Thailand. This will help us begin planning the distribution phase of the Not For Sale campaign.

• Later this year I'll go to the World Congress Against Se-xual Exploitation of Children held in Brazil.  Hundreds of anti-trafficking organizations around the world will be there, and I'll connect with people and groups who'll use the Not For Sale materials we're preparing.

• You know about the article on Not For Sale in last week's Breaking Christian News.  BCN goes to 49,000 daily e-subscribers all over the globe.  I've already heard from many of them who work with at-risk kids in eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. (I got another email from Bulgaria today.)  They're asking for copies of the Not For Sale materials as soon as they're ready.

We have a strategic plan to give them tools that will prevent more kids from being trafficked.  Our awareness materials are free--but they're not cheap.  It costs money to write books and curriculum, illustrate, print, and distribute them to at-risk kids.

It will cost $500,000 to complete and distribute awareness materials around the world.  Will you consider helping to fund some of these books?  Let's say it takes $25 to get a Not For Sale book to a child--can you sponsor 1 book?  Or 4 books?  Perhaps you can do 10 books or even more. 

Traffickers willingly pay $300 to buy a little girl.  It costs much less to tell her (and her parents) that she's not for sale.

You can donate instantly via PayPal by clicking here.  PawPaw's Pals is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and your gift is tax deductible in the U.S.

This is a critical time to accelerate this project and tell little girls around the world that they're not for sale.  It's as simple as putting a book into their hands.

389 Traffickers Arrested + 21 Kids Rescued = Great News

The FBI announced the results today of a 5-day nationwide sweep targeting criminals involved in trafficking children for prostitution in the U.S.

“Operation Cross Country” spanned 16 cities and resulted in the arrest of 389 people and the recovery of 21 children.

The operation, which ended June 22, was the largest in the history of the Innocence Lost National Initiative, which marks its five-year anniversary this month. To date, the initiative has rescued 433 children and led to the conviction of 308 people who exploited children through prostitution.

There is, of course, a difference between arresting people and convicting them.  Let's pray that all those who are guilty will soon be convicted and behind bars for a long time.

To learn what PawPaw's Pals is doing to stop child trafficking, visit www.pawpawspals.org. 

Just When I Think I've Heard the Worst Story...

...I hear another human-trafficking story that's even more tragic. 

Last night, MSNBC repeated its gripping report, Se-x Slaves in America.  If you missed it, you can watch it here or read the transcript here.

This is an enlightening and disturbing report about how human traffickers bring their contemptible business right to our backyards--often with little consequence. 

You've read it on this blog before: Trafficking is not just across the globe, but across the street.  This documentary makes that all too real. 

 

To comment, click "comments" below (or go to my blog site and click on "comments" at the end of this post).

Making a Dent

There’s an article in Breaking Christian News about yours truly, PawPaw’s Pals, and our Not For Sale child-trafficking awareness campaign.  It's called, "Can We Put a Dent in the World's Child-Trafficking Industry?  One journalist thinks it's possible."

If you'd like to donate toward this strategic campaign, you can do so by clicking here.  A secure PayPal page will open where you can give by credit card.  PawPaw's Pals is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and all gifts in the U.S. are tax deductible.  Thank you for helping us tell these girls they are not for sale.