Xtrememeasure

Watch Out: New Form Of Human Trafficking

Peace FM Online
Published July 20, 2009

Ghanaians have been asked to collectively work towards pre-empting what has now come to be christened 'Baby Harvesting', a new phenomenon of human trafficking currently going on in Nigeria. Baby Harvesting is the act of luring teenage girls who are economically challenged to cities in the name of adoption, according to Mr. Eric Boakye Peasah, the Counter-Trafficking Field Manager of the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

Mr. Peasah explained that these unsuspecting girls are usually kept in homes where men are arranged to have sexual intercourse repeatedly with them until they get pregnant. He explained further that the girls are usually provided with antenatal care until they give birth after which the babies are plucked from these unfortunate girls who are then paid off.

"It has not yet occurred in Ghana but once it is happening in Nigeria we must all take steps to forestall it in this country," he told stakeholders at the launching of a Legal Resources Centre (LRC) capacity building for law enforcement officers and victim service providers in Trafficking in Persons in Accra.
He revealed that a group of swindlers has been busted in Nigeria for engaging in 'Baby Harvesting' which must serve as warning signs to Ghanaians.

Also happening in Nigeria, Mr. Peasah further disclosed is the mind boggling act known as 'Touching'. With this adults without any modicum of conscience turn themselves into 'gynaecologists' and examine the private parts of girls. Those who are found with 'suitable' genitals are adopted and when they grow to become teenagers, they are pushed into prostitution.

He called on all stakeholders to co-operate and co-ordinate their activities since one institution can not do all; to this end he advised the LRC to concentrate on the legal aspects of human trafficking and leave the rest to other players in the industry.

He observed that in Ghana, the major sources of human trafficking are places like Amuna, Ekum Mpuano in the Central Region and Kokrobite, Awhiam, and old Ningo in the Greater Accra Region. He called on District Assemblies to mainstream the combating of human trafficking into their activities since that could be one of the effective ways of dealing with the menace.

Justice Rose C. Owusu, a Supreme Court Judge, observed that "it is not enough fighting drug trafficking and that it should be uprooted." This he believes can be achieved through education.

Justice Sophia Adinyira, also of the Supreme Court, noted that intra human trafficking in Ghana is worse than cross-border trafficking with children being trafficked from some towns in the Central Region to the cities.

Mr. Matthew Dally, a former Head of the International Labour Organizations, Anti-Child Trafficking Programme in West and Central Africa, who chaired the function, said according to the United States' Traffic in Persons Report released in June 2009 Ghana has dropped from Tier one to Tier two due to weak efforts in prosecuting offenders and inadequate victim support and care.

He called on stakeholders to build skills in case detection, investigations and prosecution, ensure tight border controls, engage in cross-border training, international co-operation and networking through INTERPOL as well as ensuring inter-agency collaboration among the police, the judiciary, immigration and the Ministry of Justice.

Unveiling the Capacity Building Project, the Executive Director of the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), Mr. Tuinese Edward Amuzu, recalled that in December 2005, Ghana marked an important milestone in human rights when the country promulgated the Human Trafficking Law which prohibits various forms of trafficking in persons, and makes provision for five years imprisonment upon conviction.

While admitting the law is an epoch making one he concedes that it is not perfect. "Ghana does not fully comply with the Act's minimum standards but is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance with those standards." He said it is for this and other reasons that the LRC is embarking on the capacity building exercise with funding from the United States Department of State.

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Safe Harbor Act‏

Please read this Op-ed piece regarding the Safe Harbor Act that is currently being considered by the NY state legislature. Child prostitutes are currently treated like criminals and the Safe Harbor Act is directed towards having them treated as PINS (Persons in Need of Supervision) instead. These children should be receiving assistance and services that will help them instead of being used by prosecutors to lock up their pimps (from what I understand, this strategy isn't really working anyway). I cannot think of any other situation where the argument that a victim should be threatened with jail time solely because her testimony is needed in order to lock up the person who victimized her would be seriously considered.

Pray !!!!!!!

http://dailycamera.com/news/2008/feb/23/the-wrong-target/

By Amanda Milkovits
The Providence Journal
Published July 21, 2009

PROVIDENCE -- Rhode Island teens under 18 can't work with power saws or bang nails up on roofs.

But dance at strip clubs? Sure. Just as long as the teens submit work permits, and are off the stripper's pole by 11:30 on school nights.

It's enough to surprise even those in America's mecca of striptease and sin -- Las Vegas.

"Everybody buzzes about 'Nevada and Sin City, tsk, tsk,' " said Edie Cartwright, spokeswoman for the Nevada attorney general's office. "But we regulate it."

Providence police recently discovered that teen job opportunities extend into the local adult entertainment world while they were investigating a 16-year-old runaway from Boston. The girl told detectives that she worked at Cheaters strip club this spring, and the police got tips about other underage girls working at another club on Allens Avenue.

That's when the police found that neither state law, nor city ordinance bars minors from working at strip clubs. Those under 18 can't buy pornography, and no one may take pictures or film minors in sexually suggestive ways. But the law doesn't stop underage teens from stripping for money. Even if the police saw underage boys or girls on stage at a strip club, they wouldn't be able to charge them or the club owners with a crime.

"I've been doing this a long time," said youth services Sgt. Carl Weston, "and I can't find anything that says it's illegal for a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old to take her top off and dance."

State law says that anyone who employs a person under 18 for prostitution or for "any other lewd or indecent act" faces up to 20 years in prison and up to $20,000 in fines. But that isn't enough to prevent underage girls from working in strip clubs, said senior assistant city solicitor Kevin McHugh, who researched the issue a dozen years ago when a teenage dancer was found at a raided strip club.

The term "lewd or indecent" is subjective, McHugh said, and is applied to behavior that's protected by the First Amendment. "Since we have strip clubs in Providence," McHugh said, "citizens don't consider [stripping] lewd."

With the age of consent at 16 in Rhode Island, the police worry that teenage strippers could take their business to the next level and offer sexual favors -- and it wouldn't be illegal. State law currently allows indoor prostitution, and two bills intended to ban it have stalled in the General Assembly.

State and federal child labor laws dictate the number of hours and times of days that minors may work, and forbid certain jobs considered to be hazardous. For example, those under 16 can't work on ladders or pump gas. Youths age 16 and 17 can't work in manufacturing or excavation.

"Nowhere does it say anything about a kid not being able to strip," Weston said.

Establishments with city liquor licenses need to keep the teenagers from the booze, but not the stage. "You can't serve alcohol if you're under 18," Weston said, "but you can be the target of a man's groping hands at age 16."

But a Rhode Island teen stripper won't find work in Massachusetts, where state law prohibits anyone from hiring minors under 18 for live performances involving sexual conduct.

Other states have had mixed encounters with the issue.

After a 12-year-old girl was found dancing nude in a club in Dallas last year, the city council swiftly passed rules barring minors from strip clubs and automatically revokes for a year licenses for sex businesses caught employing or entertaining minors.

But an Iowa county judge ruled last year that a striptease by a 17-year-old girl at a strip club was artistic expression protected by the First Amendment. The state attorney general's office has asked the state Supreme Court to review the ruling.

Nevada, meanwhile, doesn't let anyone under 18 work in casinos or in public dance halls where there is alcohol -- and there are no strip clubs in Nevada without one or the other, or both, said Cartwright, of the attorney general's office. Minors aren't even allowed to deliver mail to brothels.

When questioned about Rhode Island's law, Michael J. Healey, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, offered a copy of the current state law but did not comment for this article.

But Weston, of the Providence police, was adamant that the law should be changed.

"It leads to a societal breakdown," he said. "These are just little girls."

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