Belize Girl

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act takes into account that traffickers primarily target women and girls, who are disproportionately affected by poverty, the lack of access to education, chronic unemployment, discrimination, and the lack of economic opportunities in their countries of origin. Traffickers frequently lure women and girls into their networks through false promises of decent working conditions at relatively good pay as nannies, maids, dancers, factory workers, restaurant workers, sales clerks, or models. Their victims are often young girls in the prime of their lives who aspire to a better life, or who perhaps want to earn money to support their families back home -- only to be forced into utter misery by wicked, degenerate criminals. ... [Read More]

Ghana

There were 50 newspapers including 3 government-owned dailies, two government-owned weeklies, and many privately owned newspapers. Two of the government-owned dailies had national circulation. Most newspapers circulated only in regional capitals, and many of the smaller private newspapers were available only in Accra. The President did not appoint chief executives to the state-owned media, and the Government did not finance any newspaper. According to the National Communications Authority (NCA), the body responsible for allocating bandwidth and broadcast media licenses, Accra had 1 government-owned and 15 private FM radio stations, and there were approximately 11 government and 60 private FM stations across the country. Most stations were independent and aired a wide range of viewpoints. There was one government-owned television station that broadcast nationwide. There were three semi-private television stations that broadcast in the ... [Read More]

Introduction

Government Efforts. The Government of Iran is arresting, investigating, and prosecuting a significant number of cases involving prostitution and/or trafficking and working with Pakistan to increase border patrols to prevent cross-border trafficking of drugs and persons. Iranian law does not specifically prohibit trafficking; however, there are other statutes that are used to prosecute traffickers, including prohibiting procurement for the purpose of fornication. Over 7 months in 2002, police closed down 70 brothels. During the year, the government arrested hundreds of people for involvement in either "corruption networks" related to prostitution where young girls were trafficked abroad. No consolidated information on the total number of convictions is available, but there are cases where facilitators of prostitution rings have received sentences from 3 years to death. There have been unconfirmed reports of victims being arr ... [Read More]

Department of State Washington File: Transcript: Powell, Releasing Report, Cites Progress on Trafficking

Numbers so large can be numbing. They can freeze our imaginations. So consider just one documented example from many, many thousands of cases. Traffickers in southeast Asia took Khan, an 11-year-old girl living in the hills of Laos, to an embroidery factory in a large city. She and dozens of other children were made to work 14 hours a day for food and clothing, but for no wages. That's called slavery. When Khan protested this, she was beaten. When she protested again, she was stuffed into a closet where the factory owner's son poured industrial chemicals over her and disfigured her. ... [Read More]

Powell, Releasing Report, Cites Progress on Trafficking - US Department of State

We're talking about women and girls, as young as six years old, trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation; men trafficked into forced labor; children trafficked as child soldiers. The victims are not few, and the vast majority are women and children. We estimate between 600- and 800,000 cases each year of people illegally transported across international frontiers. ...

Numbers so large can be numbing. They can freeze our imaginations. So consider just one documented example from many, many thousands of cases. Traffickers in southeast Asia took Khan, an 11-year-old girl living in the hills of Laos, to an embroidery factory in a large city. She and dozens of other children were made to work 14 hours a day for food and clothing, but for no wages. That's called slavery. When Khan protested this, she was beaten. When she protested again, she was stuffed into a closet where the factory owner's son poured industrial chemicals over her and disfigured her. ... [Read More]

Remarks at the Rollout of the 2004 Trafficking in Persons Annual Report

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, good afternoon, everyone. I'm very pleased to be here with Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky and Ambassador John Miller1, who heads our trafficking program, and our purpose is to roll out this year's Trafficking in Persons report.The crimes of trafficking in persons are very high on President Bush's priority list, as you all know, and that's why he emphasized it in his UN General Assembly speech this past September. As the President said then, "There is a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time." [Read More]

Belize

The Government was committed to children's rights and welfare. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of 5 and 15. After children finish their primary education, they may enter a secondary school, the government-run apprenticeship program, or a vocational institution. However, these programs had room for only one-half of the children finishing primary school; competition for spaces in secondary school was intense. Education was nominally free, but school, book, and uniform fees placed education out of reach for many poor children. There were also many truants and dropouts. A study published in April concluded that girls and female teachers were victims of discrimination in the schools. Religious organizations administered a number of educational institutions, including a majority of primary schools and the most prestigious girls' and boys' secondary schools. ... [Read More]

V. Country Narratives -- Countries A through G

The Peoples’ Republic of China is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. A significant number of Chinese women and children are trafficked internally for forced marriage and forced labor. Chinese women are at times lured abroad with false promises of legitimate employment and then trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation to destinations throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America, while Chinese men have been trafficked for forced labor to Europe, South America, and the Middle East. A large number of Chinese men and women are smuggled abroad at enormous personal financial cost and, upon arrival in the destination country, are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation or other forms of exploitative labor to repay their debts. They often face exploitative conditions that meet t ... [Read More]