Texas: A man and a woman were jailed on Monday for forcing a Houston girl into prostitution. They allegedly recruited the 17 year old victim on a social network site called Mocospace for commercial sexual services. The arrest was made after the man responded to the phony profile posing a 16 year old girl, which was set up by the undercover cop. They exchanged the text message and agreed to meet at Fort Worth bus station for sexual flavors and prostitution.
Massachusetts: State rep. and joins state Attorney General, Martha Coakley to announce a comprehensive state human trafficking law. Massachusetts currently has no legislation against human trafficking. The bill, if implemented, will therefore give a tool to law enforcements to investigate and prosecute the crimes and attempts to address all aspects of human trafficking.
Missouri: Two men were sentenced to federal prison for labor trafficking foreign workers. They were two of twelve individuals who were charged with trafficking more than 1000 workers with labor. The workers were exploited with lower wages and substandard living conditions. If they complained, they were threatened with deportation. Each of the two men received 41 month and 21 month long prison sentence in federal court.
Tennessee: FBI says many people are trafficked in Memphis. According to an FBI agent, many men, women, and children are locked down and beaten to a point that they are too afraid of leaving their traffickers. A local anti-human trafficking group, Operation Broken, Silence, says that based on its four month long investigation, most of cases are sexually exploitation carried out on Backpage.com.
District of Columbia: Child trafficking is rampant in the U.S. advocates in D.C. say that most johns who commercially exploit children with sex are affluent, including politicians, college students, business men, etc. Experts estimate that the average age of a child entering prostitution is 13 years old, and at least 300,000 children are at risk of human trafficking annually.
Canada: A new court document reveals allegedly child bride incident in 2006 -2008. According to the court document, the children in the age between 12 and 18 were taken to be wed to polygamists in the U.S. It also alleges that three girls in the age of 12 and 13 were taken to the U.S. by their parents to be wed to the jailed polygamist leader, Warren Jeffs.
Oregon: Local legislators say that new bills proposed will increase protections for minor trafficking victims. One Senate says that five Senate and one House bill will provide "money for human services and special law enforcement squads, to fining offenders up to $20,000, to placing minors in foster care when they are found with an adult in sex trafficking."
LATIN AMERICA
Argentina: Women's groups propose to penalize johns to fight against human trafficking. The government agencies also agree that prostitution degrades women in prostitution and must be banned. According to the U.N., though Argentina implemented anti-human trafficking law, its ineffectiveness calls for an urgent reform.
Peru: National authority rescued 54 trafficking victims during the raid in downtown. The rescued victims included four minors and young women in the age between 18 and 21. According to the report, the victims initially denied the allegation that they were forced into prostitution, but the investigators discovered their victim status based on their contradicting testimonies.
EUROPE
Croatia: Police arrested a couple for selling their daughter to a father and a son. Their daughter was sold in exchange for horse and cash, which the report estimates 1080 euro. According to the police, the girl was believed to be sold for forced labor on a farm.
ASIA
Nepal: Many teen girls are forced into prostitution at restaurants in the capital city, Kathmandu. They were lured into coming to Kathmandu from their poor villages. One nonprofit says that sex trafficking at restaurants in the city are not uncommon. Also, sex with victims are available along with food and beverages at restaurants regardless they are mentioned on the menu.
AFRICA
Ghana: IOM is ending rescue mission of child trafficking victims in fishing industries due to lack of financial resources. The program launched in 2003 to rescue many boys and girls from forced labor in fishing industries. Also, the program rescued more than 700 child victims and provided extensive medical and other extensive assistances to them since 2003. IOM has relied on the U.S. government funding up until recent. The IOM represent urged the needs to find other funding sources for ongoing efforts to rescue the children from forced labor.
