ABA Journal
Justice Department Annouces $44 Million in Grants Against Human Trafficking (September 24): Attorney General Loretta Lynch today announced more than $44 million in grant funding to fight human trafficking. In remarks to the Seattle-based Washington Advisory Committee on Trafficking, Lynch said the grants will fund efforts to fight trafficking, support victims and expand research. Among the grants is $23 million in funding for anti-trafficking organizations working in cooperation with law enforcement. Sixteen collaborative groups around the country have already been selected for such grants.
State Launches Task Force on Human Trafficking in Alaska (September 24): State officials are launching a new task force on human trafficking in Alaska. The Department of Labor approached Mayor Ethan Berkowitz’s administration about finding new enforcement strategies for combating state-wide problems with labor and sex trafficking. The task force meetsfor the first time this Monday in Anchorage, with partners from law enforcement, non-governmental, and tribal entities all at the table. Though there are no details yet about funding, the Department of Labor is contributing resources. Neither Labor Commissioner Heidi Drygas or Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz were available for comment, but an official from the mayor’s administration wrote in a release that the task force’s goal is enhancing legal and regulatory tools to reduce human trafficking across the state. The groupwill include partners from the FBI, Department of Public Safety, Anchorage Police Department, Covenant House and the YWCA, among others.
Reuters
Congress to Seek More Transparency in Human Trafficking Report (September 17): A U.S. Senate committee may draft legislation seeking to add more transparency to the State Department’s annual human trafficking report following concerns it had been watered down for political reasons, a senior lawmaker said on Thursday. Senator Bob Corker, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations panel, said lawmakers remained concerned over the credibility of the report and whether politics trumped human rights in this year’s rankings of strategically important countries such as Malaysia and Cuba. Corker and Senator Ben Cardin, the panel's ranking Democrat, both expressed concerns after a closed-door hearing between the Senate Foreign Relations panel and Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken to discuss the Trafficking in Persons report. The hearing followed a Reuters examination published in August that said the State Department office set up to independently rate countries' efforts to fight human trafficking was repeatedly overruled by senior U.S. diplomats in the production of this year’s Trafficking in Persons report.
Baltimore Sun
Howard Police Gain Funding to Fight Human Trafficking, Assist Victims (September 15): The Howard County Police Department is now turning the recovered criminal funds against its perpetrators to assist the victims and enhance law enforcement efforts to minimize the illegal activity in the county. Created by the county council early last year, the Human Trafficking Task Force recommended creating the fund, which was set in stone by County Executive Allan Kittleman on Aug. 28. While half of all assets seized through the arrest of human trafficking criminals will be given to a nonprofit agency for direct support services to victims, the other half will assist police investigations, including additional surveillance equipment, staff training and overtime salary expenses for the officers involved. "The money and proceeds [human traffickers] have taken from others to build their criminal enterprise, we'll use that to provide services for victims, to provide resources for the investigators who are handling that as well as some of the other services, [like] required counseling for victims or drug rehabilitation or temporary housing or transportation," Police Chief Gary Gardner said. "That typically would be handled along the same framework that we have with our drug forfeiture account." Gardner said the department must submit a request to the county's Chief Administrative Office to utilize the fund, as well as a proposal, discussing how the assets forfeiture money will be used. After review by Chief Administrative Officer Lonnie Robbins, the fund will then be dispersed.
New York Times
Consumers and Lawmakers Take Steps to End Forced Labor in Fishing (September 13): Federal lawmakers, State Department officials, fishing and pet food companies, and class-action lawyers are stepping up efforts to combat forced labor at sea. Last week, a group of consumers filed a class-action lawsuit in California against Mars, accusing the company, among the biggest producers of seafood-based pet food in the world, of failing to disclose its dependence on forced labor. A similar lawsuit was filed in late August against Nestlé, also a major producer of seafood-based pet food. Several lawmakers have also begun trying to address the problem. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, proposed legislation in August aimed at increasing transparency and accountability in corporate supply chains. The bill requires larger companies to report in their financial filings what they are doing to prevent the use of trafficked workers. In taking these steps, the lawyers and lawmakers cited a recent New York Times series, The Outlaw Ocean, about lawlessness on the high seas. One of the articles focused on migrant boys and men who were sold onto fishing boats in the South China Sea, where they were held captive, sometimes for years.
Omaha World Herald
Iowa Enlists Truckers’ Help in Effort to End Human Trafficking (September 6): An Iowa initiative seeks to enlist truckers’ help. The hope is that a trucker, or someone else, will call authorities and the incident will end with a pimp in jail and human trafficking victims getting help from social services. Iowa’s Office of Motor Vehicle Enforcement is joining with Truckers Against Trafficking to place the Colorado-based nonprofit’s fliers, stickers and posters at truck stops and rest areas and to hand them out during vehicle inspections and traffic stops. The state agency enforces state and federal commercial vehicle regulations, so its staff comes in contact with thousands of truck drivers each year. And truck drivers, because they are on the road so much, are more likely than most to witness signs of human trafficking.
San Francisco Chronicle
SF Identifies 291 Human Trafficking Victims During Six-Month Period (September 1): Nearly 300 mostly young females were victims of sex trafficking in San Francisco during the last six months of 2014, according to a new city report that statistically begins to uncover the severity of the exploitation. With a booming tourism industry and great business wealth, San Francisco ranks among the top hubs for human trafficking in California, along with Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego. Additionally, the Bay Area is among the 13 highest child sex trafficking areas in the nation. The report was released Monday by the two-year-old Mayor’s Task Force on Anti-Human Trafficking. Eleven percent of the cases were labor trafficking. Labor trafficking cases often include domestic workers or members of cleaning crews such as for hotels who are exploited. Of the total victims, 118 were minors under the age of 18, including 12 who were 13 years old or younger, and 113 were between ages 18 and 24. Thirty-seven percent of the victims were black. The report does not include in the totals the data from the Police Department’s special victims unit, which uses a different definition for human trafficking. The unit arrested 68 traffickers, during the same time period. The police unit reported 68 cases of suspected sex trafficking survivors, including six minors, among 16 San Francisco neighborhoods.