Baby Trafficking?!

Source

According to an Australian Broadcast Corporation report,  a company in Thailand has been exposed for its "terrifying surrogacy ring."  Make no mistake, this isn't a case of surrogacy where a contractual agreement exists between a childless couple and a willing surrogate mother participant.  The company known as Baby 101 is accused of holding thirteen Vietnamese women captive in order to bear children for Taiwanese clients.  Because gestational surrogacy is illegal in Taiwan, the Thai company provided a black market solution for some childless Taiwanese couples.  The only problem is, the "surrogate" mothers aren't technically free agents; they're victims of human trafficking.  Their unborn children haven't even breathed their first breath outside the womb and they're trafficking victims, too.

BANGKOK - THIRTEEN Vietnamese women, seven of them pregnant, have been rescued from an 'illegal and inhuman' surrogate baby breeding ring in Thailand, officials said on Thursday.

Police said the company, called Baby 101, received orders by email or via agents from childless couples and in some instances the male partner would provide sperm to inseminate the women.

'This is illegal and inhuman. In some cases it looks like they were raped,' said Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanawisit, who added that those carrying children would be cared for in a private hospital.

The Vietnamese women, some of whom were offered thousands of dollars per baby, were held in two houses in Bangkok and had had their passports confiscated.

The women were freed after they were able to send an email to the Vietnamese embassy, which tipped off Thai authorities.

'Nine of the women said they had volunteered to work because they were told they would earn US$5,000 (S$6,400) for each baby. Four said they were tricked,' said Deputy Immigration Commander Major General Manu Mekmok. -- AFP  [Straits Times]

This scenario presents a terrifying (not necessarily) new (but yet widely unheard of) scenario where not only are young women (often children themselves) bought and sold as chattel for sex and domestic labor (which is bad enough) they're baby machines to boot.  In the business sense of global human trafficking, it makes scary sense.  Human trafficking exists widely because of demand and the supply for demand.  In the case of Baby 101, the company saw a demand by childless couples in a country where surrogacy is illegal.  So Baby 101 supplied that demand.

Nearly 40 women, who are identified only by a numbered code, are pictured in various poses on a website believed to be run by the company, many of which seem to be around a swimming pool at the same property.

The surrogacy service, from egg and sperm donation to the delivery of a baby, is advertised on the site for $32,000 plus other expenses.

It appears to be aimed at Taiwanese customers and says that because running a commercial surrogacy business in that country is illegal it conducts its operations in other locations.

Offices were listed in Bangkok, Phnom Penh in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The website says Thai women are not used as surrogates and adds "the protection of the law is absolutely (sic)".

It says where the women live "there are security lookout in every entrance, severely control the person and vehicles that pass in and out to the community, the guards routinely patrol around 24 hours a day all year".

Pictures of pregnant women in the house are also shown.

The company describes itself as "eugenics surrogate" and promises no "connection between consignor (client) and surrogate mother".

"We could create the finest procreation condition for your baby, mainly through the efficient embryo refining, only the superior left for implanting," it adds.

"It is really really critical for the investigators to get to the bottom of this," said Phil Robertson, of New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"This is human trafficking in its most perverse and horrific form, sexual exploitation and rape, the mind boggles that something like this could happen," he said. [ABC News]

Fortunately in this case, charges are expected against at least one member of Baby 101's deprave organization.  On a grim note, however, I fear what other "commodities" trafficking rings around the world have exploited for financial gain at the detriment of enslaved women and children.  We only know what's been brought into the light, but we'd be fools to think there's not more injustice hiding in the darkness.

Grimly,

RF

Modern Slavery

Today CNN reported on a human trafficking ring that was recently thwarted in the Newark area.  Human trafficking, i.e. slavery.  Right here in the United States.  In 2010.



For the full CNN report, refer to "Held as slaves, now free" from CNN's website 

This is kind of a hot button issue for me.  Human trafficking awareness is something I am very passionate about.  I began researching about a year or so ago on the subject, after hearing about it essentially for the first time (or at least, becoming more aware of it) in a violent sex crimes class.  I'm a Criminal Justice major with a hope of doing something in the realm of working against trafficking in women and children.

The following is the introductory paragraph from a final paper for one of my CJ classes this past semester:

If someone asked me what I would buy with fifty dollars, I would think of a dinner for three at Applebee’s, a jacket from Target, or a tank and a half of gas for my truck.  I would never think that for fifty dollars, I could buy a human being.  Every day, in nearly every country across the globe, from China to our own backyard, human beings are bought and sold in a vast system where they are exploited by slave traders and holders.  This global phenomena is known as Human Trafficking.  In the United States alone, more than 100,000 people are enslaved at any given time while an additional 17,500 new victims are trafficked across our borders each year (David Batstone, Not for Sale).  While statistics do inference “at risk” populations, the viral industry that is Human Trafficking typically does not discriminate by race, nationality, or gender.  Any human being can be trafficked.  

I have compiled a survey of some of the research I have done on this subject:

• Globally, 80% of trafficking victims are female.  50% are children. (Hidden Slaves)
•  Johns pay to have sex with enslaved girls as young as five years old.  They often view their payment as earning the right to take a child's liberty. (The Client)
• Traffickers will groom their victims to earn their trust; they eventually convince their victims to travel with them, most often to a foreign country, often under the guise of a well paying job or an education
• Once victims reach their destination, they are stripped of their identifying documents (passports, driver's licenses, etc.) and often brutalized.  Traffickers will often use rape, especially if their victims are virgins, as a control device.  In many cultures, an unmarried woman who has sex regardless of the circumstance is considered despoiled and a shame on her family.  Traffickers know this well and brutally use it to shame victims into staying with them
• Traffickers essentially create a situation where their victims are utterly dependent on them.  A victim may find herself in a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language, where she is told that if she goes to the police they will put her in jail for illegal immigration (which in some cases is sadly true), where she has no personal identification documents.  She is completely at the mercy of her captors.  
• It is from there that traffickers exploit the women and children who are their victims, selling them for domestic and/or sexual slavery to the highest bidder or pimping them out, allowing them to be raped over and over again, daily. 
• Trafficking is not just a problem in Asia, Europe, or Africa.  It thrives in the U.S. as well.  

While I am hopeful that CNN's coverage of this particular case of the women from West Africa will gain  more attention to the problem of trafficking in the U.S., I know that for cases like this one that make the News there can be hundreds more that go unnoticed.  There are people in our own country who are enslaved, many of them pass under the public eye without a hitch.

Here are some sources I highly suggest for more information:

• Not for Sale, by David Batstone
• Trade, 2007 film
• The Client, pdf 
• Hidden Slaves, Forced Labor in the U.S., pdf

Signed,

RF