Child Labor2003
Uganda UG
President Yoweri Museveni used Uganda's military to battle the two main rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Thousands of children fell victim to the war - abducted by both the LRA and the ADF to serve as fighters or porters. As the conflict between the Government of Uganda (GOU) forces and armed insurgent groups intensified in late 1996, the GOU military began encouraging rural people in affected areas to move into protective camps. However, the military provided only a short period for the move and undertook little preparation for the influx of people to the protective camps. Some international observers thought a peace deal was going to be reached in October 2006. LRA leaders (though not Kony) met with GOU negotiators in the town of Juba in Southern Sudan. However, the talks broke down relatively quickly as both sides violated their predetermined conditions of the negotiation. LRA forces moved from their designated area along the Sudanese-Ugandan border and GOU forces assembled in unauthorized portions of Northern Uganda. The talks were also at an impasse. The main discussion was about the charges brought on Kony and four LRA leaders by the ICC. The LRA claimed they would sign a peace deal after the charges were dropped, while GOU negotiators demanded that a peace deal be in place before they discussed dropping the charges. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/uganda.htm Many of the children were rescued by the Ugandan military and others found the opportunity to escape despite fear of being killed or re-abducted. The pressure by the Ugandan army decimated rebel ranks significantly.
Child Labor2003
Uganda UG
President Yoweri Museveni used Uganda's military to battle the two main rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Thousands of children fell victim to the war - abducted by both the LRA and the ADF to serve as fighters or porters. As the conflict between the Government of Uganda (GOU) forces and armed insurgent groups intensified in late 1996, the GOU military began encouraging rural people in affected areas to move into protective camps. However, the military provided only a short period for the move and undertook little preparation for the influx of people to the protective camps. Some international observers thought a peace deal was going to be reached in October 2006. LRA leaders (though not Kony) met with GOU negotiators in the town of Juba in Southern Sudan. However, the talks broke down relatively quickly as both sides violated their predetermined conditions of the negotiation. LRA forces moved from their designated area along the Sudanese-Ugandan border and GOU forces assembled in unauthorized portions of Northern Uganda. The talks were also at an impasse. The main discussion was about the charges brought on Kony and four LRA leaders by the ICC. The LRA claimed they would sign a peace deal after the charges were dropped, while GOU negotiators demanded that a peace deal be in place before they discussed dropping the charges. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/uganda.htm Many of the children were rescued by the Ugandan military and others found the opportunity to escape despite fear of being killed or re-abducted. The pressure by the Ugandan army decimated rebel ranks significantly.
Child Labor2003
Uganda UG
President Yoweri Museveni used Uganda's military to battle the two main rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Thousands of children fell victim to the war - abducted by both the LRA and the ADF to serve as fighters or porters. As the conflict between the Government of Uganda (GOU) forces and armed insurgent groups intensified in late 1996, the GOU military began encouraging rural people in affected areas to move into protective camps. However, the military provided only a short period for the move and undertook little preparation for the influx of people to the protective camps. Some international observers thought a peace deal was going to be reached in October 2006. LRA leaders (though not Kony) met with GOU negotiators in the town of Juba in Southern Sudan. However, the talks broke down relatively quickly as both sides violated their predetermined conditions of the negotiation. LRA forces moved from their designated area along the Sudanese-Ugandan border and GOU forces assembled in unauthorized portions of Northern Uganda. The talks were also at an impasse. The main discussion was about the charges brought on Kony and four LRA leaders by the ICC. The LRA claimed they would sign a peace deal after the charges were dropped, while GOU negotiators demanded that a peace deal be in place before they discussed dropping the charges. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/uganda.htm Many of the children were rescued by the Ugandan military and others found the opportunity to escape despite fear of being killed or re-abducted. The pressure by the Ugandan army decimated rebel ranks significantly.
Child Labor2003
Uganda UG
President Yoweri Museveni used Uganda's military to battle the two main rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Thousands of children fell victim to the war - abducted by both the LRA and the ADF to serve as fighters or porters. As the conflict between the Government of Uganda (GOU) forces and armed insurgent groups intensified in late 1996, the GOU military began encouraging rural people in affected areas to move into protective camps. However, the military provided only a short period for the move and undertook little preparation for the influx of people to the protective camps. Some international observers thought a peace deal was going to be reached in October 2006. LRA leaders (though not Kony) met with GOU negotiators in the town of Juba in Southern Sudan. However, the talks broke down relatively quickly as both sides violated their predetermined conditions of the negotiation. LRA forces moved from their designated area along the Sudanese-Ugandan border and GOU forces assembled in unauthorized portions of Northern Uganda. The talks were also at an impasse. The main discussion was about the charges brought on Kony and four LRA leaders by the ICC. The LRA claimed they would sign a peace deal after the charges were dropped, while GOU negotiators demanded that a peace deal be in place before they discussed dropping the charges. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/uganda.htm Many of the children were rescued by the Ugandan military and others found the opportunity to escape despite fear of being killed or re-abducted. The pressure by the Ugandan army decimated rebel ranks significantly.
Child Labor2003
Uganda UG
President Yoweri Museveni used Uganda's military to battle the two main rebel groups, the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Thousands of children fell victim to the war - abducted by both the LRA and the ADF to serve as fighters or porters. As the conflict between the Government of Uganda (GOU) forces and armed insurgent groups intensified in late 1996, the GOU military began encouraging rural people in affected areas to move into protective camps. However, the military provided only a short period for the move and undertook little preparation for the influx of people to the protective camps. Some international observers thought a peace deal was going to be reached in October 2006. LRA leaders (though not Kony) met with GOU negotiators in the town of Juba in Southern Sudan. However, the talks broke down relatively quickly as both sides violated their predetermined conditions of the negotiation. LRA forces moved from their designated area along the Sudanese-Ugandan border and GOU forces assembled in unauthorized portions of Northern Uganda. The talks were also at an impasse. The main discussion was about the charges brought on Kony and four LRA leaders by the ICC. The LRA claimed they would sign a peace deal after the charges were dropped, while GOU negotiators demanded that a peace deal be in place before they discussed dropping the charges. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/uganda.htm Many of the children were rescued by the Ugandan military and others found the opportunity to escape despite fear of being killed or re-abducted. The pressure by the Ugandan army decimated rebel ranks significantly.
CSEC2003
United States US
Julio, Tomás and Luciano Salazar-Juárez are the dons of the largest local network trafficking and sexual exploiting Mexican girls and adolescents, who operated for over ten years in the agricultural camps and suburbs of San Diego. They used deception and coercion to recruit women and girls from native communities in Mexico to work as prostitutes in the San Diego area. The victims were normally moved by coyotes across the US Mexican border. Once in the US, the victims were kept in several houses throughout the San Diego county area. Many of the victims were moved to agricultural camps throughout the area to service workers at these locations.
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but no one has ever been prosecuted under the law. Rather, the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and International Needs Ghana negotiated with the Gborble shrine and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 31, 2003. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a 30 year old woman was liberated who had been held within the shrine for five years, from the ages of 7 to 12 years of age. She was a replacement for her sister who had also been sent to serve as a shrine slave at a very young age but did not long survive the harsh conditions of life there. In the Dzoli shrine girls were usually taken in when the priest claimed through divination that a crime had been committed in their family. In this case the grandfather was accused of having sex with another of the priest’s slaves. In the shrine, the slave rose at 4 a.m. and spent her days cracking palm nuts from which the older slaves extracted palm oil. This the priest sold for money without ever sharing any of the proceeds with his slaves. After a time the shrine learned that a man wanted to marry her. She was so happy that she danced about, but this arrangement did not end her slavery. The shrine still controlled who she married and where she lived and travelled, and she was required to attend the annual festival every year and to bring sacrifices so expensive that getting them together still dominated her life all year long. Her story came out in the course of the liberation process.
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and International Needs Ghana negotiated with the Bekli shrine and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 31, 2003. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a 30 year old woman was liberated who had been held within the shrine for 6 years, from the time she was an early teenager till about 20 years of age. She was later allowed to live outside the shrine under the condition that her life and movements be strictly controlled by the shrine and that she bring expensive offerings to the annual festival. This usually took most of her wages. Her story came out in the course of the liberation process.
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and International Needs Ghana negotiated with the Dzoli shrine and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 31, 2003. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a 40 year old woman was liberated who had been held as a shrine slave all her life. Her mother had been a slave, and a customary practice called replacement dictates that if a slave dies or runs away, another girl from her family must replace her. This woman was born as a result of rape within the shrine, raised in the shrine, and replaced her mother as a full trokosi upon her death. Her story came out in the course of the liberation process.
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and International Needs Ghana negotiated with the Gborble shrine and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 31, 2003. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a 40 year old woman was liberated who had been held within the shrine for 8 years, from the ages of 5-13 years of age. During that time she was raped and gave birth to the priest's child without medical care or any care for the child. She was later allowed to live outside the shrine under the condition that her life and movements be strictly controlled by the shrine and that she bring expensive offerings to the annual festival. This usually took most of her wages. Her story came out in the course of the liberation process.
CSEC2002
United States US
A 15 year old girl was recruted by male pimps to enter the Santa Clara Children's Shelter to befriend girls in the shclter. She then convinced three other girls as young as 13 to run away with her to become prostitutes in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Forced Labor2002
United States US
Maria Garcia, a farm labor contractor, conspired with five others (Jose J. Garcia, Jose I. Garcia, Elias Botello, Rogelio Espinoza, and Sylvia Munoz Rubio) to recruit undocumented Mexican males from Arizona to move to New York to work in labor camps. Garcia used guards to monitor the workers’ action, and physically and verbally threatened victims with threats of arrest and deportation. The camps, located in Orleans and Genesee counties in Western New York, were crowded and unsanitary. Garcia deducted heavily from the victims’ earnings, leaving them with essentially nothing. They were told they had to say until they had paid off charges for transportation, food, housing, and other miscellaneous costs.
Sex Trafficking2002
United States US
The operation was run by Antonio Molina and approximately 5 others. They trafficked approximately 70 women into the US from Honduras and other Latin American countries. They were promised jobs as hostesses and maids, instead they were forced to work as prostitutes in bars and night clubs. They were housed in apartments with guards and were under constant surveillance.
CSEC2002
United States US
"Fulton city police began their investigation shortly before midnight friday (8/9/2002) when a 15 year old girl was brought to the station by a relative. The arrests were made late Saturday and early Sunday." -Syracuse Post Standard 8/13/2002 "Seven men... face charges ranging from sexual misconduct and patronizing a prostitute to third degree rape and endangering." -Syracuse Post Standard 8/15/2002 "Judge Spencer J. Ludington has sentenced Dashnau to 9 months at the Oswego County Correctional Facility and Payment-Knopp to 6 months in Jail. Both women pleaded guilty to fourth degree promoting prostitution and endangering the welfare of a child, both misdemeanors." -Syracuse Post Standard 2/6/2003 This poster has not yet found information on the charges against the men in question.
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but no one has ever been prosecuted under the law. Rather, the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and International Needs Ghana negotiated with the Gborble shrine and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 31, 2003. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a 26 year old woman was liberated who had been sent to be a shrine slave at the age of seven. Supposedly her grandfather had captured and eaten a neighbor’s fowl. This resulted in the neighbor visiting the shrine to place a curse on the offending family. (The curse is never placed on the offender himself, only on the family. Likewise, it is never the offender who pays for the crime, but rather an innocent virgin girl from his family. The offender is virtually always male, the one who pays for the offense virtually always female, or more specifically, a young virgin). When the seven-year old victim arrived at the shrine, she was forced to go through an initiation ceremony in which she was stripped and paraded naked around the town. The victim says she hated life in the shrine, with its long, hard hours of work on behalf of the priest, harsh punishment, constant humiliation, endless taboos and restrictions, and forced worship of the shrine god (in spite of the fact that Ghana officially gives everyone freedom of religion).
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but no one has ever been prosecuted under the law. Rather, the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and International Needs Ghana negotiated with the Gborble shrine and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 31, 2003. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a 25 year old woman was liberated who had been enslaved by the shrine for 20 years, since she was five years old. She was not even aware of the exact offense committed or the family member who was charged, but a series of deaths in the family was attibuted to a curse of the gods because of the alleged crime and the victim was forced to try to atone for the crime by a life of slavery. As Monica grew and learned more about her situation, most traumatic to her was the fact that out of fear, her parents did not even protest. Her story came out during the liberation process.
CSEC2002
Ghana GH
The practice of ritual or customary servitude was outlawed in Ghana in 1998, but no one has ever been prosecuted under the law. Rather, the practical implementation of the law has fallen largely to NGO's who have facilitated the shrines in ending the practice. Two NGO's, Every Child Ministries Ghana and Fetish Slaves Liberation Movement negotiated with the Aklidokpo shrine community and educated them as to the issues over a span of over a year, finally winning the approval of the shrine for the liberation of all its trokosi slaves on January 22, 2004. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine freed the slaves and their children and agreed to end the practice of ritual servitude in that place. In this case a woman of unknown age was freed having served as a slave in the shrine since she was too young to remember. When she came she was too young to act on her own and was cared for by older slaves until she grew older. She was the third girl enslaved at the shrine in an attempt to atone for the same misdeed. When the priest tried to rape her, she ran away but was soon caught. Again she tried to run away later, but always ended up back at the shrine. She still struggles with fear, feeling that the god of the shrine may kill her at any time and for any reason.
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
The Aklidokpo traditional shrine near Adidome, N. Tongu District, Volta Region of Ghana practiced a form of slavery popularly called trokosi, but called ritual or customary servitude by the government of Ghana. In this system, shrine priests take in young virgins as a sort of “living sacrifices” in an attempt to make atonement for a crime allegedly committed by a male member of the family. The priest of the Aklidokpo shrine died, and rather than enstooling a new priest, the shrine owners and elders of the community agreed to liberate their slaves and end the practice in that place. In this case an 18 year old woman was freed from shrine slavery. Taken into slavery at an early age, she was denied education and is unable to read. She had received partial release and married at an early age, but this arrangement did not end her slavery. The shrine still controlled who she married and where she lived and travelled, and she was fined for the least mistake and required to attend the annual festival every year and to bring sacrifices so expensive that getting them together still dominated her life all year long. The marriage did not last long. The husband abandoned her while she was pregnant because someone told him he should not have married a trokosi. Then she lost the child as well. At the beginning of counseling, the victim was extremely bitter. After liberation she decided to become a Christian, which caused her family, which follows African traditional religion, to turn against her. The victim feels very lonely.
Sex Trafficking2002
Ghana GH
Two NGO’s, Every Child Ministries and Fetish Slaves Liberation Movement, cooperated to negotiate the liberation of all the Aklidokpo shrine slaves. This was facilitated by the fact that the shrine priest had died, so the shrine owners and elders agreed to liberate rather than enstooling a new priest. The liberation was a public event in which the shrine owners signed an agreement that slavery was ended in that place, all their slaves were freed, and they would never again take in slaves to the shrine. In this case a 69 year old woman was freed who had spent most of her life in shrine slavery. She suffered greatly while in servitude and feared that she would never get out alive. After the liberation, when ECM counselors first visited her, she was very sick, but she recovered and is now in good health.
Domestic Servitude2002
United States US
Abdelnasser Eid Youssef Ibrahim and his ex-wife, Amal Ahmed Ewis-abd Motelib decided to move with their five children to the United States to start an import-export business. The couple had bought the victim two years before moving to the United States, and brought the victim to California under an illegally obtained six-month visitor’s visa at the age of 10.
Forced Labor2002
United States US
There are three main traffickers. Juan Ramos (age 34) and Ramiro Ramos (age 42) (brothers) and Jose Ramos (age 45), their cousin. They ran a company named R&A Harvesting, Inc. that brought undocumented workers from Arizona to Florida to work in the fields picking oranges. Many of the workers were from Mexico and Central America. They employed up to 700 workers and told them that they had to pay off their transportation debt which was $1,000. The Ramos brothers were known among the workers as "El Diablo" (the Devil) and "El Nino" (tropical storm). They told the workers that ifany of them tried to escape, they would look for, find, kick beat and kill them. They were housed in sub-standard barracks and often times six workers lived in one room. $30 was deducted weekly for their lodging. The workers were not paid minimum wage, rather they received tokens for each orange bin they filled. They were also encouraged to shop at a grocery store that was more expensive than the rest, which was conveniently owned by Ramiro Ramos' wife. They worked a minimum of ten hours a day and never had a day off. Only 16 of their 680 workers had valid Social Security numbers and their I-9 forms were forged. This event is also linked to a murder that was committed on April 20th 1997. The Highlands County, Florida, Sheriff's Office received a 911 call saying that something strange had happened out in the migrant-worker ghetto. When the police got there they found a man laying face down in a pool of blood, after being shot in the back of the head execution style. The person who called 911 identified a vehicle and the police found the same vehicle at the Ramos's house. After searching the car they found a .45 caliber bullet and brought in the Ramos brothers and their cousin in for questioning. They were released. Several weeks later they found out from several migrant workers that the Ramos brothers use violence to make sure none of the workers run away without paying off their debt. The man who had been shot was a van driver that was fleeing with some workers. The Ramos brothers killed him. The police got a search warrant and searched the Ramos' house and found a Savage 7-millimeter rifle, a Marlin .22 rifle, an AK-47, a semiautomatic rifle, a Browning 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol and a Remington 700 7-millimeter Magnum rifle. Both brothers were then arrested but released 5 days later on 20,000 bail. Weapon charges were never brought and labor charges were dropped. This just goes to show the extensive history of oppression and violence that the Ramos family placed upon migrant workers and all those that helped the workers.
Forced Labor2002
United States US
The victim was able to convince her employer/captor to allow her to go to church. On her way she asked the man walking next to her to use his phone and called the police. The FBI was already investigating the shop and were able to convince the victim to cooperate with them in prosecuting the trafficker. With her testimony and evidence of involuntary labor witnessed around the shop, such as small storage room the victim and her co-worker were forced to sleep in, the trafficker received six months of house arrest.
CSEC2002
Lesotho LS
Lydia Muso, social worker in the LCCU. Cases were referred by Department of Social Welfare and the Maseru Urban Police. Two girls from Lesotho, ten victims in the record books of LCCU (Lesotho Child Counseling Unit): 6 were female, four were male. Female victims were on average 17 years old (youngest victim was 14), males were 16.5 years old on average. No details were given on how the victims were found. The trafficker was never found.
Sex Trafficking2002
Norway NO
Georgian male known as "Ludvig" took a Russian woman he met in Lithuania to a summer house outside of Vilnius, where another russian woman was being held against her will. They were then transported to Stockholm, before arriving in Oslo in Dec.2001.Then taken to a flat in a fashionable area where they were guarded, raped repeatedly, abused (including burned with cigarettes)prostituted out, drugged with heroine and never paid for their "services rendered". Ludvig was already serving time in Sweden when prosecutors began the case.