'Unseen' News and Views – By Baher Kamal & The Like
– Human trafficking for sexual exploitation has been steadily increasing in Canada. The most recent statistics indicate that 2016 had the highest recorded rate of human trafficking, with one police-reported incident for every 100,000 people in Canada. Despite these staggering numbers, reported cases make up just a small part of a larger, secretive industry where most incidents of sex trafficking fall under the radar.
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30 July 2019 (United Nations)* — Human trafficking is a heinous crime that affects every region of the world. Some 72 per cent of detected victims are women and girls, and the percentage of child victims has more than doubled from 2004 to 2016, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Most detected victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation; victims are also trafficked for forced labour, recruitment as child soldiers and other forms of exploitation and abuse.
Traffickers and terrorist groups prey on the vulnerable, from people in poverty to those caught up in war or who face discrimination.
Geneva, 26 July 2019 (IOM)* – A new report out today (26/07) examines the connection between migration and modern slavery and focuses on which migrants are most vulnerable to being forced into modern slavery, and under what circumstances.
Prepared by Minderoo Foundation’s Walk Free initiative and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for the Alliance 8.7 Action Group on Migration, the report provides recommendations on key steps governments can take to address this risk.
The report confirms certain sub-groups of migrants are at particular risk.
This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Riana Group.
– The United States is no exception to the practice of modern day slavery—a crime for which it is rarely held accountable at the United Nations.
Since 2003 the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has collected information on about 225,000 victims of trafficking detected worldwide.
Globally countries are detecting and reporting more victims, and are convicting more traffickers. This can be the result of increased capacity to identify victims and/or an increased number of trafficked victims.
Maiduguri, 12 July 2019 (IOM)* – In a bid to better respond to trafficking in persons in Borno State, north-east Nigeria, where 7.1 million people need humanitarian assistance, twenty organizations are joining forces in a new Anti-Trafficking Task Force (ATTF) in humanitarian action.
At the Bakassi IDP Camp in Maiduguri, staff and community members attend a stage play about human trafficking. Photo: IOM/Paulina Odame
The International Organization for Migration (IOM), jointly with Heartland Alliance International and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) launched the Task Force on 9 July in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno.
Bogotá, 11 June 2019 (IOM)* – #TuVidaCambia (Your Life Changes) awareness raising campaign has been launched in Colombia to protect Venezuelan migrants and refugees from falling prey to trafficking and smuggling networks.
The band performing in Cucuta, a Colombian city on the border with Venezuela. Photo: IOM
This is a common danger Venezuelans face as they migrate through Colombia, as they seek places to settle, or while in transit to other South American destinations, including like Chile, Ecuador and Perú.
Cox’s Bazar, 24 May 2019 (IOM)* – Bangladesh is boosting efforts to combat human trafficking with a 2018-2022 national plan of action to improve enforcement through better inter-agency coordination, improved training of officers and harmonization of existing laws.
Rohingya refugees living in Cox’s Bazar’s vast, impoverished camps are highly vulnerable to human trafficking. Photo: IOM/Muse Mohammed
The plan, developed with technical support from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), was presented to local officials and counter trafficking specialists at a conference in Cox’s Bazar this week. It follows legislation passed in 2012 to counter human trafficking in this South Asian country of 160 million.
Jakarta, 30 April 2019 (IOM)*– A new mobile app developed by IOM Indonesia provides frontline law enforcement with a powerful tool to quickly detect victims of human trafficking in the fisheries sector.
In March 2015, the Government of Indonesia rescued hundreds of crew from conditions of modern slavery aboard foreign fishing vessels. IOM helped to identify the victims of trafficking, provided shelter, health and catering services and ultimately organized the safe return home of all of the men including these Myanmar nationals. Photo: Ed Wray/IOM Indonesia
London, 26 March 2019 (IOM)* – Vulnerability to human trafficking and modern slavery is influenced by overlapping and interconnected risk factors which cut across individual, household, family, community and structural dynamics, according to a new study.
Two-year IOM, University of Bedfordshire study examined the vulnerabilities to human trafficking for Albanians, Vietnamese and Nigerians. Photo: IOM/Francesco Malavolta
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 