Category: Immigration

“They appear to have done nothing”: Facebook’s Inaction in the Face of Human Trafficking

Facebook is one of the world’s largest virtual communities and plays host to a wide array of services and people from across the world. This is, of course, a for-profit company focused on constant growth and two years ago in a leak from inside the company we learned at what cost they would pursue this growth.

Human trafficking has been an issue in online circles since the invention of the chat room if not before. Facebook has become among the new biggest platforms traffickers use to find victims, especially for domestic work in the Middle East. In the leak, one document appeared that examined the extent to which Facebook and its related products were being used in the practice of human trafficking. This document was called “Domestic Servitude: This Shouldn’t Happen on Facebook and How We Can Fix It.” The document details specific strategies that should be employed to combat this practice on Facebook, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears despite being entirely paid for by the company. What programs were put in place quickly became defunct, many of the suggestions were never implemented at all. The reason for this? Taking an aggressive stance would hurt Facebook’s bottom line. The company was afraid of “alienating buyers,” meaning the buyers of people sold into domestic servitude.

Many women have come across ads on Facebook and Instagram from “employers” boasting of great pay and excellent working conditions. These women would then contact these employers via Facebook Messenger, Instagram’s direct message feature, or even Whats App which is a messaging app owned by the same parent company. Many of these stories describe victims and traffickers meeting, making arrangements, and even reimbursing plane tickets without ever leaving the Facebook ecosystem. The documents leaked from within the company reveal that Facebook has known about this problem for many years and yet has been relatively lethargic when it comes to enacting solutions that they paid researchers and law-enforcement experts to come up with.

Reading UnFree, we have spoken a lot about what happens when the women arrive in the country of their employment, but this piece by the Wall Street Journal is an exploration in to the nefarious ways these women often come to arrive in the countries. The agencies involved in this creation of this un-freedom are the ones to blame, but there is something to be said of Facebook facilitating this knowingly simply because they fear that alienation of traffickers would hurt the company’s bottom line.

https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/the-facebook-files-part-3-this-shouldnt-happen-on-facebook/0ec75bcc-5290-4ca5-8b7c-84bdce7eb11f

Op-Ed: A Call to Authenticity: The Plight of Transgender Refugees

Evander Jennings  

Picture this: You are looking out upon a scorched desert, humming the song your mother used to sing you to at night when you couldn’t sleep. As you hum this tune you realize there are many more sleepless nights ahead. You remember last night, like so many others. The memories flood back as you dab at the swollen eye you received from the men who beat and raped you, again. This is what you were running from; where you come from, people who are different, people like you, are better off being dead in most cases. Because you break down the barriers between man and woman, like your mother’s song, firm and unbreakable, yet soft and sweet. Because you are this other, Transgender, you were told to kill yourself or risk being killed by those you thought you could trust. Continuing on your journey you travel by foot across an endless desert to a neighboring country. The country of endless possibility, prosperity and most of all, safety. But sadly, this is only the beginning of your journey.

Transgender men and women already face impossible odds. They must steel themselves against wave after wave of hate, physical and emotional abuse, neglect, poverty, sickness, harassment and discrimination. They face a world that has no love for them, yet they cling to authenticity like a prayer. Transgender individuals in several countries across the globe are faced with the threat of death simply because they are living as their authentic and true selves. These individuals are unwelcomed within their home countries and in some vehemently criminalized, simply for trying to live as they are; as men and women. By increasing our knowledge about the issues transgender refugees face and trying to adjust the broken systems and laws that do this harm, we can play an active role in saving the lives of thousands of people coming into our country.

Transgender asylum seekers, immigrants, and refugees all share a common and pronounced threat to their wellbeing, mental, and physical health. Not only are they subjected to inhumane treatment when being processed into the country, once allowed in they are subjected to horrors such as forced sterilization. Transgender refugees are detained for months and sometimes years at a time, as stated by the International Detention Coalition. Harassment, rape, and physical violence run rampant in the detention centers whilst they await processing into the country. They are often housed with those of their birth gender meaning for example, trans-women are housed with men, leading to sexual harassment and often physical abuse. There is often abuse from officers that are supposed to protect refugees into the country as well. One account from a woman named Tania Cordova from Michoacacan, Mexico stated:

“They didn’t have no place to house me, and they decided that if I wanted to be in general population, I was going to be housed with males,” she said. “I remember one day I went back to detention, and there was a female officer there who was supposed to search us, but not see us without clothes. She wanted to see what a transgender looks like.”

The way the system is as of now, the government is more willing to repatriate or relocate individuals back to their home countries than to allow them entrance into the country. Senior Director for Programs at the Women’s Refugee Commission Dale Buscher explains that many LGBT persons are relocated instead of gaining the asylum though there are “76 United Nations (UN) Member States criminalize same-sex acts among consenting adults and seven of those states (Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, and parts of Somalia and Nigeria) maintain the death penalty for consensual homosexual acts.” In short this means there are potentially thousands of lives that have been lost due to repatriation, and relocation because authorities are not taking the possibility they are LGBT into consideration.

LGBT individuals that could potentially seek asylum are usually too frightened to reveal their identity due to fear of being turned away or discriminated against by officials. If asylum seekers are interviewed in a group setting, and it seems this is common, they may hide their identities due to this mixture of shame and fear. As Buscher states; “LGBT refugees risk having their claim denied if they are not able to speak openly about their sexual identity, how they were treated in their home countries based on that identity, and how it led to their flight.”. The fear that is a constant in the lives of these individuals doesn’t go away with leaving their hometown or village. Transgender people especially tend to be noticeably LGBT and yet are still turned away or repatriated back to their home countries. There seems to be a shift in blame towards the asylum seekers because of them hiding their identity, however this is an issue that needs to be addressed by those with the power to help instead of victim blaming.

These populations are overlooked and not taken care of in a proper way that shows them any human decency or respect. Until we change the way or immigration systems are set up and operated, more lives are going to be lost and shattered. We need to put legislators into office that don’t overlook or demean Refugees and asylum seekers coming into the United States. They are fleeing their oppressive countries to try live safely in the arms of this great nation and we are turning a blind eye to a people in need. They are being murdered, prosecuted, beaten, and raped because they are a little different from the norm. They are autonomous, emotional, human beings, simply because they look differently, sound differently, dress differently does not negate the fact they deserve basic human rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Evander Jennings is an Anthropology and International Studies double major with a focus in global diversity. Upon graduation he hopes to either work internationally, or on the home front to provide safety, aid, and support for those within minority groups.

 

 

The Wrong Debate: Substantive Blog Post #3

How do policies on immigration create an environment in which migrants can be targeted for human trafficking?

 

This article observes the complexities behind feminism and the distinction of women that are trafficked. The author argues that the word “force” is currently the primary factor in determining trafficking and the loose term benefits traffickers because many are often only prosecuted in extreme examples of human trafficking. While there are extreme and violent cases of human trafficking that deserve real attention, many are less “exciting” and involve more “routine power and control relationships.” Trying to create a divide between human smuggling and human trafficking leads to the ignorance of the often similar fates of both. Just as it occurs with human trafficking, the lives of the individuals being illegally smuggled into countries are at the mercy of their smugglers, who are often also traffickers. Many try to make the distinction between smuggling and trafficking by assuming that the women that are smuggled and end up prostituting, do so purposefully as their initial intention for moving to the country. The counterargument would be that it is unlikely that these women are moving to far away nations from often high poverty, simply to be a sex worker. Additionally, because these women are coming from poverty, it is unlikely that they are able to pay the smugglers outright, forcing them into whatever forced labour the smugglers/traffickers desire; often prostitution. The point of this argument is to say that each individual circumstance is hard to determine.

 

It is also important to note that the concept of “choice,” in terms of women choosing to migrate illegally is arguable due to the living circumstances of women in their countries of origin. This includes high female unemployment, sexual harassment and discrimination. While trafficking and exploitation is a huge problem for women coming from outside borders, the author points out that is also becoming an increasing problem within the borders of the EU. While many may view the definition of trafficking as a debate within politics and academia, a more inclusive definition serves to protect the victims that are marginalized by the current definitions that are limited to the use of “force” as a determining factor of trafficking.

 

An underlying question that contributes to this debate between those smuggled and becoming sex workers and those that are sex trafficked, is whether or not the sex industry exploits women. More so, under what conditions is it considered exploitation. One theory contributes any willful sex worker to be linked to previous abuse and the sex as a coping mechanism. Another looks to the deep gender inequalities and lack of opportunity as an additional reason for women to get involved in prostitution.

 

A solution proposed is to focus on gender equality as a primary concern in hopes that in turn, feminists will fight to create more equality and ultimately, create environments in which this exploitation would not be allowed to occur. Additionally, creating a more gender equality society would reduce the need for the disadvantaged women to migrate in the first place. If a common ground was met amongst feminist to focus on developing a more feasible framework in which women and girls are assisted in their integration or return to their country of origin, they could be left less vulnerable to traffickers.

 

This piece brings up a good point about the way that policies are worded and developed. Wording can limit or expand the way that a policy is enforced. By using the word “force” as a precursor for determining if a person is sex trafficked, the author argues that cases that are prosecuted are often those of extreme cases where “force” can be easily observed. This word neglects to really encompass other forms of abuse and confinement. This article takes a feminist’s standpoint which gives more of a perspective of the reason why women and girls are trapped by traffickers. By trying to have a better understanding of why this is, law makers will have a better understanding of how to combat the problem and who should be included as victims.

 

 

Kelly, L. (2003). The wrong debate: Reflections on why force is not the key issue with respect to trafficking in women for sexual exploitation. Feminist Review, (73), 139-144. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.jproxy.lib.ecu.edu/docview/212096757?accountid=10639

Undocumented Immigrants and Mental Health

This is a powerful story of how the experience of being undocumented can affect one’s mental health. So many discussions about the Florida shooting are about mental health as a causal factor. But what about mental health as the result of unjust social policies, over-policing, and broken laws?

“What Happened to Norma’s Brain?”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/undocumented-immigrants-ptsd_us_5a74e117e4b06ee97af29715

Europe needs to do more to prevent human trafficking

http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2015/10/europe-urged-to-do-more-to-prevent-trafficking/#.ViU0g36rSM9

This snippet highlights another consequence of the migration of refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

According to the article, human traffickers are taking advantage of refugees’ vulnerable state, often smuggling them via “unseaworthy vessels.”

UN Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, Maria Grazia Giammarinaro, is urging Europe to help trafficked victims through not allowing immigration policies to negatively affect anti-human trafficking laws as this could lead to an increase in human trafficking and exploitation.

Hmong child bride lawsuit in Minnesota

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/28/the-open-secret-of-abused-hmong-child-brides-goes-public-in-minnesota-law-suit/?tid=hybrid_collaborative_3_na

This article is about child brides ie human trafficking of child brides from Laos. In this case, a woman has chosen to speak out and is suing her perpetrator/abuser.

There is apparently a population of Hmong people in St. Paul Minnesota and it is a common occurrence where young girls in Laos are lured with the promise of something like being in a music video or meeting a movie star as was the case with this woman. The community does not openly speak against it because it could mean some sort of physical retaliation.

This woman was taken at the age of 14 (she is now 22) under the promise of an audition to be in a music video. Instead, a relative of the man who initially made the promise to the young girl (and her parents) showed up and raped her. He eventually allowed her to return home, but upon learning she was pregnant, forced her to marry him. Upon bringing her to the US, he kept her passport and immigration documents as well as threatened her with taking their child away if she tried to leave. Eventually, she was able to get a protective order against him and their “cultural” marriage ended.

And now she is suing him “for $450,000, the minimum statutory damages under “Masha’s Law,” a federal law that provides for a civil remedy in the form of monetary compensation in child pornography, child sex tourism, child sex trafficking and other similar cases.”

 

MG