As Say No-Unite points out, the first step to ending violence against women is ending the silence and speaking out. In that spirit at their kind invitation we share this compelling look at the trafficking of women and girls in Nepal, the first in a series of videos about violence against women throughout the world.

Amidst all the American flags that are flying today, there is this via Jodi Jacobson,

It appears that during a time when the Bush Administration was making headlines by proclaiming its concerns for trafficking in women worldwide, the State Department failed to investigate claims that paid contractors in Afghanistan were “purchasing” and selling women for sex.

Both National Public Radio (NPR) and CNN have both reported that a former manager for ArmorGroup, North America, the private contractor that provides guards for the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan is suing the contractor for wrongful termination after he said he tried to blow the whistle more than a year ago about inadequate staffing and improper behavior by guards, including going to brothels and sex trafficking.

We “rescued” women in Afghanistan so we could traffic them?  With all due respect, there is a special place in deepest hell for these people.

So if  we weren’t really there to help the women, remind me again…something about Al Queda…

The top commander of U.S. and international forces in Afghanistan said Friday he sees no signs of a major al-Qaida presence in the country, but says the terror group still maintains close links to insurgents.
ArmorGroup is owned by Wackenhut Services Inc., a U.S.-based firm.  The same company continues to guard the U.S. Embassy, a contract worth more than $180 million a year.

Gen. Stanley McChrystal spoke on the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States by al-Qaida that prompted the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The invasion quickly toppled the Taliban regime that had sheltered al-Qaida leaders who plotted the 9/11 attacks, but has since bogged down amid a deadly insurgency.

“I do not see indications of a large al-Qaida presence in Afghanistan now,” McChrystal told reporters at the Dutch Defense Ministry, where he met military officials.

So can we maybe pack up our toys and go home now?  Just asking.

Suppose just for a minute you’re an unemployed middle-class white guy in Detroit.  Your marriage falls apart, your house burns down and you are in debt up the wazoo.  But you’re really, really well-endowed down there.  Solution?  Sell your services.  Yes those services.  According to HBO’s new series Hung, the notion of a guy taking up what is sometimes referred to as women’s oldest profession in order to make ends meet should be highly amusing. As Dan Barry of the New York Times puts it, “The writers have turned a penis into a plot device”. Ho, ho.

Leaving aside the revolting suggestion that residents of Detroit should turn to prostitution now that the economy has tanked, and with all due respect for the rights of those who freely choose this line of work, the reality is that most people who sell their sexual services are coerced or sold into the profession and most of those people are women. For them, sex work is most definitely not a form of entertainment.

Sex trafficking is currently recognized by the United Nations as human rights violation. However, not all forms of prostitution involve sex trafficking, which leads to significant debate over whether all prostitution should be considered a human rights violation. While not all women are forced into prostitution through sex trafficking, many are somehow coerced or forced into the profession.

Research shows that sex trafficking greatly contributes to the spread of infectious diseases including HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis B in women and their clients in South Asia, an area deeply effected by sex trafficking. Very few prostitutes receive the proper screening or treatment for these STIs.

Furthermore, while prostitution has not historically always been recognized as a form of violence against women, prostitutes suffer significant physical violence resulting in black eyes, bruises, and broken bones.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice,

• 83 percent of the reported human trafficking incidents involved allegations of sex trafficking.
• Over 90 percent of victims in both alleged and confirmed human trafficking incidents were female.
• 99% of the victims in alleged and confirmed sex trafficking incidents were female.
• 71% of sex trafficking victims  were under age 25.
• 80% of sex traffickers are male.

Not a very amusing scenario is it?  For more information about sexual trafficking, via RapeIs the following are organizations working to raise awareness about sexual slavery:

• Standing Against Global Exploitation (SAGE)
• The Protection Project
• Captive Daughters
• Polaris Project
• The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

From Yanar Mohammed, President of the Organization Of Women’s Freedom In Iraq (OWFI):

After two years of fact-finding and months of lobbying over local and regional televisions, newspapers, websites and radios, OWFI’s activism receive the first results: the legislaors have forwadrded a draft law against trafficking of women and girls.

• As usual, our NGO was not informed of the draft law and we had to hear it from the media.
• As usual, the govenment encourages their “SELECT NGOs” to hold meetings and raise their timid demands about the same issue albeit too late. They continue to call them “key” organizations in spite of their feable agenda on VAW.
• As usual, the officials announce that they will someday set up shelters and visit prisons to help the trafficked women with the help of their “SELECT NGOs”.

The attempt of undermining our efforts to lead women’s struggle for their rights will not deter us from continuing to fight.

For more background, please read this article in the Time Magazine. Please note that the writer of the article has misunderstood details on the registration of OWFI. Although we run informal shelters which have saved tens of women from honour killings, domestic abuse, sectarian abuse, and trafficking, our organization is fully registered at the government.

At this point, we need to document our main debates on media with officials:

• March 6: A shocking article on Time Magazine about OWFI activists who risk their lives while visiting brothels and “no light” districts. Previous victim of trafficking who is an OWFI shelters resident speaks out.
• March 12: Spokesperson of the Iraqi government, Ali Al Dabbagh admitting to existence of the problem of trafficking of women in answer to facts brought forward by OWFI president, Yanar Mohammed: Al Arabiya.net website. As a result, 360 people joined the debate and forwarded their opinions.
• March 16: Female Parliamentarian rejecting the possibility that Iraqi women can be trafficked or practice prostitution. Sameera Al Mousawi is the in charge of the Women and Children’s Committee in the parliament. She waived away the issue that Yanar Mohammed brought forward in Al Diyar TV talk show, claiming that the discussion was an insult to Iraqi women.
• April 1: From Iraq show on Al Arabiya Satelite TV, interviews OWFI president and also interviews a previous victim of trafficking(resident of OWFI shelters) who discloses being trafficked to a Arabic Gulf country where she and her many women were exploited by royalist princes of the gulf: the show was not aired for reasons which were not disclosed.
• April 13: Media exposing the new Draft Law against Trafficking in Persons. Another article on the Time Magazine which leaked the news and interviewed government and ngo women about the issue as mentioned above.

Our utmost thanks go to the courageous Rania Abou Zeid who ventured into the Iraqi scene and collected the facts. We also thank the Time Magazine for allowing their pages to become reason for protecting a population of exploited Iraqi females.

We will still be watching the Draft Law as the State Shura Council (a newly founded council of clerics in the “democratic” Iraq) reviews it and takes the final decision.

Many thanks to Yanar Mohammed  for bringing this to our attention.  We need to find ways that American women can support this very important measure to stop the trafficking of women in Iraq.

I will be be taking a blog break until the middle of next week and thought I would leave you with these 2 inspiring videos.

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