The October issue of Reader’s Digest has an article on a lady whose job is busting slave holders in America and bringing the slaves to freedom. Pretty cool. As of Sept 22 it is not available online. When looking I found an article from 2008 about a a girl Shyima Hall, whose parents willingly sold her as a slave to a family in America for $30 a month.

Only about 2% of slaves are freed each year in the US and it usually comes from an observant person seeing something that they think is not quite right an alerting authorities which was the case for Shyima.

Shyima Hall "Freed Slave" Photographed By Lori Stoll

You can read the full article here. http://www.rd.com/your-america-inspiring-people-and-stories/slave-in-the-garage/article55737.html

Be sure to keep your eyes open as you go through life. Who knows, God might use your awareness of the issue and willingness to be get involved as a means for bringing freedom to someone held in slavery some day.

Trevor Frank Mclvor, 62, and his live in girl friend, Kanokporn Tanuchit, 44 are being charged with 5 counts each of possessing and using a slave.  The slaves were recruited in Thailand by a third party who had arranged Australian visas for them. Once they arrived in Australia their passports and phones were taken from them.

They would stay at either the Fairchild brothel or the couple’s house.  They had to work at least 16 hours each day servicing many clients for which the couple made about $125 each.  The women were told they had incurred a debt of between $35,000 and $45,000 and needed to work it off, according to Crown prosecurter Bruce Levet.

The women were often locked in one of the two places and were told what they could wear and where they could go.

The trial is ongoing in Sydney, Australia before Judge Jonathan Williams.

 Pimp Gets 30 Years in Prison

By: Edu Punay

Blancaflor said Sanchez’s case is the first conviction involving trafficking and prostitution of boys in the country and the third successful conviction of human trafficking case for this year.

He stressed that while the case had many setbacks during its four-year trial, it gave “encouragement to us all to persevere in the work of justice.”

Read more at:

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspxarticleId=523777&publicationSubCategoryId=65

Teen Girls’ Stories of Sex Trafficking in U.S.

From the ABC News

Fifteen-year-old “Debbie” is the middle child in a close-knit Air Force family from suburban Phoenix, and a straight-A student — the last person most of us would expect to be forced into the seamy world of sex trafficking.

But Debbie, which is not her real name, is one of thousands of young American girls who authorities say have been abducted or lured from their normal lives and made into sex slaves. While many Americans have heard of human trafficking in other parts of the world — Thailand, Cambodia, Latin America and eastern Europe, for example — few people know it happens here in the United States. …

Read more, follow this link:

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=1596778&page=1

A Side of McSlavery with that?

By: Amanda Kloer

Last year, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers won a great victory by getting Burger King and McDonalds to agree to pay the farmworkers who picked their tomatoes $00.01 more per pound and enforce non-exploitative working conditions.  However, these fast food giants are not making good on their promises to workers.  According to a recent article by Bill Maxwell,

“The Burger King and McDonald’s deals have not been implemented, and the pickers have not seen a penny of the money that belongs to them. Instead, the money from the chains is being held in bank escrow accounts. The CIW is trying to get the money dispersed to pickers.”

Read more at:

http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/a_side_of_mcslavery_with_that

Sex Slave Trade Video Game For Sale Under New Euphemism

by: Amanda Kloer

Earlier this year, women’s rights blogger Jen brought you a great story about Amazon.com’s refusal to sell the Japanese video game Rapelay, where the main character/player is a stalker and rapist.  That company is still selling rape games, plus games focused on “sexual slave training.”  To skirt regulations, however, they’ve just given the games new, more euphemistic names.

The website BGamebox which sells these games via download to home computer has recently “removed” the offending categories, but in a Craigslistesque move is just going to rename them.  The ”ryoujoku” (rape) category has been renamed the “Platinum” category and the and “choukyou” (sexual slave training) category is now the “Thoroughbred” category.  They’re also renaming individual games.  For example, “Gang Raped by the Entire Village: Girls Covered in Milky Liquid has become the slightly-tamer sounding The Trap Set by the Entire Village: Bodies Covered in Milky Liquid. Wow, that new title leaves me totally wondering what on Earth that liquid could be!  The content of the games, remains the same.

To read more, follow this link:

http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/sex_slave_training_video_game_for_sale_under_new_euphemism