Fight Against Human Trafficking Needs To Target Corporations: U.S.

ROME -- The fight against human trafficking, which for years has focused on rescuing sex slaves and punishing their pimps and smugglers, is now seeking to compel corporations to ensure they aren't unknowingly facilitating modern-day slavery.

United States Congressman Chris Smith told a conference Wednesday inside the palazzo housing the Vatican courts that Delta Air Lines Inc. has already begun training flight attendants to spot potential victims from being trafficked and to notify police upon landing.

The conference was organized by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, which has been on a decade-long campaign to raise awareness of human trafficking.

Between 12.3 million and 27 million people are currently estimated to be enslaved and trafficked under promises of a better life, but forced into prostitution, manual labor or domestic servitude.

The U.S. ambassador-at-large to combat human trafficking, Luis CdeBaca, said awareness of the issue had resulted in legislation to punish traffickers and protect victims, but that the next step must involve making consumers and corporations aware.

"It will take private-sector corporations collaborating with countries across regions to trace the supply chain of cheap goods and figure out where trafficking exists and how to fight it," he said.

Comments

[katgal1232]

11:21 AM on 05/20/2011

American business men are probably more often than not the perpetrators against these children. The more money someone has the more they think they can do what ever they want, especially men.

[vee k]

06:49 AM on 05/20/2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/19/sex-party-reward-german-salesmen

[hopeforthesold]

11:34 AM on 05/19/2011

Agreed. As consumers we need to do our research and vote with our dollars. Sadly most corporations will not change because it's right, but only if staying as they are will hurt profits. Either way, it's our responsibility to get informed.

[blahblahblahreally]

09:13 AM on 05/19/2011

SH says that there is no heaven and boom there are well over 14,000 comments overnight, millions enslaved and we have 41 comments so far.................At least 41 people will have a shot at seeing heaven.

[vee k]

07:41 AM on 05/19/2011

this is a good initiative!
you should build a global corporation of all the intiative against human traficking

another one is with facebook: http://www.humantraffickinginfo.org/blog/facebook-partners-trafficking-org-fights-internet-child-porn

Worth a read:http://peaceinitiativesatx.org/post/948134495/slaves-of-power-a-journey-into-sex-trafficking-of

My big respect goes to the investigative journalist Lydia Cacho:
"They are creating pop culture of pornography around the world":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3UZbt17F0w

[Theophrastus]

06:49 AM on 05/19/2011

The problem here is that these corporations sub contract to save even more money. Then those in charge of finding the contractors turn their heads to the abuses to protect their own a$$es. If (and I know they do) big corporate finds out about it, they're too busy tending the bottom line to care about things that won't get them into any legal hot water, so they're willing to wait to initiate change contingent upon such information becoming public, if it does become public AND there's a chance that the resulting opinions might affect shareholder value they initiate change. This is just the reality of life in a corporate feudal system. God save the King... sized mattress corporation!

[SelfAccountable]

10:10 PM on 05/18/2011

Um, I'm pretty sure corporations are already very much aware of what is going on. How else do you get labor so cheap? You snatch up the passports and refuse to pay your 'employees'.

[patililac]

12:44 AM on 05/19/2011

That's why we need to monitor them. But, heck, we can't even regulate the corporations' polluting, etc.....

[SelfAccountable]

01:22 AM on 05/19/2011

Well, you know, the many people are far more important than the environment and if we have to pollute so that we can supply them with plastic doodads that can entertain them briefly they... well, they may not notice that the place that they're living is now extremely toxic and they're all dying terrible slow deaths because of it. Yay commerce!

I'm glad they're making an effort and all so late in the game, but I don't think it will have much of an impact. It really speaks to the false idea that corporations are completely unaware of the problem, when labor profits greatly from human trafficking. Especially agriculture. I hear about blacks still looking for reparations for their ancestors, but there are thousands of women and men in this country at this very moment enslaved and no one really talks about it.

[Danny Dragone]

08:12 PM on 05/18/2011

Corporations and Governments (not to mention certain religious groups) work together to keep the biggest business in the world, HUMAN TRAFFICKING, keep going. The only people helping is real PEOPLE.

[pcenedella]

07:50 PM on 05/18/2011

www.stopslavery2011.com is seeking corporations and individuals to assist with advocate convention in November.......... please call 888.206.3264 or email [e-mail]

[WilliamBudd]

06:58 PM on 05/18/2011

They should add other groups operating under the cloak of religion.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/tom-cruise-scientology-under-fbi-investigation_n_820250.html

[Bmori]

04:30 PM on 05/18/2011

I have always found incredibly distasteful the apathy people in media display when it comes to this problem. We are so busy being outraged over a passing scandal that this never gets in the news.
What most of these people go through is the worst kind of torture imaginable.
Just one of the few efforts to cover this
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/

[Today2011]

03:05 PM on 05/18/2011

This is a crime that every single person should be aware of and make their children aware as well. The terrorists that we have been so focused upon are nothing compared to these monsters. Human life, especially a woman's, is not respected. The demand and money is the driving force. And, it is happening right here in the USA.

[dennis1943]

03:55 PM on 05/18/2011

And in your neighborhood............

[RichardinDelmar]

03:01 PM on 05/18/2011

Trafficing is one of the largest industries in the world. It includes sex, forced labor, illegal entry into countries, and many forms of contract labor. We have focused on the sex trade as it is "good" to chase pimps and brothel keepers. The training mentioned in this article is great to take proactive stances to prevent the women and men, girls and boys, from getting snared into sex trade webs. However, much of the rest of the trafficing involves labor for governments, such as in Dubai, Kuwait, and other Gulf State. Involves labor for individual citizens who employ illegals as housekeepers, nannies, and other domestic activities. These people often do not pay proper wages, give any time off, nor allow the employees out. They are in most countries of the world. Most of the hotels of the world employ illegal immigrants and as such are part of the trafficing complex. Some agricultural activities do the same. Much of the construction industry. Until we get as active against these sets of the use of trafficed labor, I would say we are not serious about the issue.

Let's get serious.

[green genius]

02:25 PM on 05/18/2011

What about Dubai? It was built with conscripted slave labor.

[phantoma]

01:56 PM on 05/18/2011

Can someone explain to me what the Vatican connection is to this? Not sure I understand.