Why Invisible Child’s #Kony2012 Campaign Gets No Applause From Me

In short: #Kony2012 #StopKony misrepresents N. Uganda, spreads misinformation abt Kony/the LRA, denies Africans’ agency and is imperialist. It raises the perennial question of “Who represents Africa?”

For example: This tweet (one of many prime examples) succinctly exemplifies all that I critique in this piece:

In fact, it reminded me of my post-colonial readings of Karl Marx. Reading this quote from his “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “Sie können sich nicht vertreten, sie müssen vertreten werden” spurred me deeper into my anti-colonialist, post-colonialist fervor. Literally translated from German, “Those who cannot represent themselves must themselves be represented,” the quote revealed to me just how insidious the narrative of “saving” and “speaking for” the subaltern is.

HOW DOES THIS TIE INTO Invisible Children’s #Kony2012 CAMPAIGN?

If “awareness” is the payoff for paternalistic, imperialist, “white man’s burden” NGO campaigns, I don’t want it. (Just the name “Invisible Children” denies and co-opts the agency of Ugandans- many of whom have organized to protect child soldiers…). I stand by this: if you’re more comfortable talking about Africans than you are talking to an African person, you really should not be in the business of representing Africa. Furthermore, if you cannot find an African nation on a map, let alone acknowledge Africans’ agency, you should not be providing “solutions” or “aid. Certainly, if you think that Uganda is in Central Africa, you should not be disseminating (mis)information that could have implications on policy.

Presumably, this campaign is supposed to raise awareness in the international community of Joseph Kony and lead to his arrest and/or death. The assumption is that taking down the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army will eliminate the problems. Thing is, Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army are symptoms of corrupt governance. Invisible Children’s video strangely omits Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s complicity in the horrors of the conflict that began in the late 1980s in Northern Uganda at the beginning of his (prolonged) presidency. Clearly, the international justice community is aware of Joseph Kony, because his name has been on top of the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s “most wanted” list for nearly a decade. Not to mention the fact that the United States armed forces have made several attempts at fighting the LRA and killing Joseph Kony, all of which resulted in the displacement of Sudanese and Congolese civilians as the LRA scattered about Central Africa.

[Also, I suggest a little light research into Invisible Children's spending practices.]

Abolitionism Alone Won’t End Slavery & Human Trafficking

So I saw this tweet and it set off a series of tweets about the fallacy of using the failure of police forces to enforce anti-trafficking laws to dispute the prevalence or significance of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime that is hard to quantify on a global & national scale b/c of the sheer lack of awareness/sensitivity.

Let’s say that City X is a known hub for human trafficking- specifically labor trafficking or the trafficking of minors into the sex trade. In a year, the police force only makes 637 arrests pertaining to trafficking.  What went wrong here? Local police forces are likely not equipped to identify and address the crime of trafficking. This can be attributed to a lack of political will, which hinders the enforcement of the anti-trafficking laws. That fact is, the number of arrests (or even the number of convictions or the severity of the punishments) does NOT correlate to the prevalence of the crime.

Beyond Abolition: Ending Slavery in Mauritania

[Crossposted at Future Challenges Organization]

Slavery is forced labor or exploitation with little to no pay (beyond subsistence) as a result of force, fraud or manipulation. Human trafficking (often called modern-day slavery) usually involves the added elements of recruitment, transportation and receipt of trafficking victims with the intent of exploitation. Slavery does not necessarily involve the trafficking of a person, but it does involve exploitation, forced labor, exploitation, abuse and slavery-like conditions. A person is a victim of trafficking if he or she has been moved within a country or to another country as a result of force, fraud or manipulation and is exploited or made to work as a slave. It is estimated that there are over 27 million slaves today worldwide and they are exploited in many forms including: forced labor, forced begging, sexual exploitation, forced marriage and the sale of body parts.

The Mauritanian government, under President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, has recently announced measures to regulate the working conditions of domestic servants and workers within the country‘s borders. However, approximately 20 percent (well over half a million) of Mauritania‘s population remains enslaved particularly in the domestic and agricultural sectors. Mauritania has failed to fully abolish slavery within its borders, in spite of repeated passages of laws abolishing the slave trade in the years 1905, 1981 and 2007.

Article: What Do Côte D’Ivoire’s Displaced Populations Face?

[Cross-linked at Future Challenges Organization]

Macrotrends: [Migration + Pandemics + Globalization + Security & Anti-Terror Policy]

According to the United Nations, the conflict in Côte D‘Ivoire has displaced an estimated one million Ivorians. This is the aftermath of the November 28th election. Allasane Ouatarra is recognized by both the United Nations and the African Union as the winner, but the incumbent President, Laurent Gbagbo refuses to cede power, alleging voter fraud. The climate has devolved into one of violence. On 3 March, 2011, six women were shot by the Ivorian government‘s forces while peacefully participating in an all-women protest against Gbagbo‘s continued rule. On 17 March, 2011, pro-Gbagbo forces fired mortars into a market in the Abobo region of Abidjan, killing between twenty-five and thirty, injuring at least sixty. Residents in Abidjan‘s shantytowns live in fear of being harassed by militias claiming to be looking for Pro-Outtara „rebels.“

The events in Abidjan are a microcosm of the conflict in the country as a whole. Côte D‘Ivoire is flanked by Ghana to the east and Liberia to the west. The fighting has displaced an estimated 4 percent of the nation‘s population- about 100,000 of whom are fleeing westward to Liberia. There are also significant, untold numbers of Ivorian refugees fleeing eastward across the Ivorian-Ghanaian border. Estimates from the Ghana Refugee Board suggest that, as of early March, about 2,000 Ivorian refugees have fled to Ghana.

Liberia is recovering from a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003. Liberian orphans and child soldiers still remain a vulnerable group.

Al Jazeera: People & Power – Slaves to Football

For many African youth, football is a dream, an escape from locales bereft of opportunities. The glamourous images on the TV contrast greatly with the grinding mundane of daily life and restless youth chase after those dream images. Many are talented footballers. Some are not. The fact remains that their dreams are the foothold of unscrupulous traffickers.

Yes, human trafficking and football are connected. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that feeds off of the dreams and aspirations of African youth. Football recruiters transport boys thousands of miles away in Europe (or even domestically) with the promise of training at football academies for budding talent. There they are forced to work in conditions of forced labor or indentured servitude- even abandoned to become beggars and unskilled laborers in a strange land.

Unscrupulous traffickers and coaches profit from the domestic, international and transnational trafficking of Africa’s aspiring football stars. In the video, you see the example of one man in Côte D’Ivoire, who housed boys in his house and “sold” them to traffickers masquerading as recruiters.” The report indicates that he was investigated by the Ivorian government.

Fatou Diome, Senegalese author, tells the story of Moussa in her book “The Belly of the Atlantic.” Moussa, a Senegalese youth who was trafficked to Italy under the pretense of receiving training in a football camp and gaining exposure to FIFA’s talent scouts, offers a cautionary tale to the other football-obsessed boys in his home village. Instead of meeting talent scouts, he is rejected and abandoned, forced to beg to get the money back home. In his home village, he is seen as a failure because he came back from the alleged ‘land of plenty’ with nothing in hand. The story has a tragic ending.

However, this is not to say that all stories end in tragedy. Instead, I’d like to raise awareness about this issue. I will be blogging more about the organization I work for- Free Generation International and their ground-breaking initiatives.

Article: The Overlap Between Human Trafficking and HIV AIDS in Africa

[Cross-linked at Future Challenges Organization]

There has not been very much discussion on the overlap of human trafficking and HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa.  Both human trafficking and HIV/AIDS are recognized as impediments to economic development on the continent of Africa.  HIV/AIDS is acknowledged as one of the push factors for human trafficking in southern Africa, in addition to poverty and undereducation. The  HIV/AIDS epidemic has disproportionately affected marginalized groups- particularly women and children.  Subsequently, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among victims of human trafficking is higher than that of the general population, and because of their status, these victims often do not have access to the medical care that they require.

The fact is that Africa is a very young continent.  Some 60% of its population is under the age of 24. Additionally, the continent of Africa has over 14 million AIDS orphans. These children live with particular vulnerabilities. As children, they are already susceptible to exploitation (human trafficking, in particular), as one or more of their parents is deceased. Children who have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS are more susceptible to traffickers’ manipulations. For example, older children trying to feed their siblings are most likely to be lured by a trafficker’s fraudulent job offer.

Human Trafficking: An Overview

There are an estimated 27 million slaves today.  There are more slaves at this moment than at any point in history.  In addition to this, the average price of a slave today is about $90 USD, when the historical average is about $40,000 USD.  The price of a human being has collapsed at the point when the number of slaves reaches historical heights.  The United States spends an average of $6000 a second on it‘s military industrial complex, a rate at which it could free every slave in about 4.5 days.  Of course, the purchase of every enslaved person‘s freedom only reifies the system that enslaved them, increasing their market value, as the purchase is a sign of increased demand.  On an ethical level, the purchase of enslaved persons‘ freedom does nothing to combat the ideologies that make slavery permissible and normalized.

What is Trafficking in Persons?

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth [above] shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth [above] have been used.

Of course, this definition does not encompass the full range of exploitation, which includes but is not limited to:

• illegal (transnational) adoption
• sexual exploitation
• coerced labour
• child brides
• recruitment of children into armed conflict
• forced begging
• removal of organs

Contributing factors to the vulnerability of victims of trafficking in persons include:

Human Trafficking News Roundup: 19 December 2010

Let’s start off with a fact:

1 in 6 children in the world under the age of 14 are child laborers. That’s over 150 million children.

…

Tough anti-trafficking law in the offing: Draft suggests speedy trial tribunal, considering the offences non-bailable‘

(Bangladesh)

Human trafficking and related crimes will be considered non-bailable and non-compoundable offence and tried in the speedy trial tribunals to be set up in all districts and metropolitan cities, says a draft anti-trafficking law.

The persons convicted of the crimes would be punished with a minimum of eight years rigorous imprisonment plus fines and a maximum of life sentence.

The proposed Human Trafficking (Prevention and Protection) Act-2011 also provides for setting up National Human Trafficking Prevention Authority (NHTPA) to pursue human trafficking cases and take measures to combat the crime.

The tribunals will take into cognisance the cases against government officials even if the complainants have not taken the government approval to file those, says the draft.

The Daily Star has obtained a copy of the draft, which defines human trafficking as sale or transfer of men and women by force, threats or cheating for sexual and commercial purposes or other forms of exploitation in or outside the country.

Using men and women for commercial purposes through fake marriages and household servitude will also be considered human trafficking.

For the first time, the government has defined labour trafficking in the draft law. It says transferring people by illegal force or deception in the name of jobs will fall into labour trafficking. Someone may not be subjected to servitude, bonded labour or debt bondage, but that will not lessen the gravity of his trafficker’s crime, the draft says.

A projector plays over the face of a Gambian boy at an event designed to raise awareness of child sex abuse in the country

Breaking the silence of Gambia’s sex tourism: The tiny West African state has become a magnet for Western predators looking to abuse children.

On a hot Wednesday evening local children gather by a mango tree in the sandy backstreets of Bijilo, close by Gambia’s main tourist drag on the West African country’s Atlantic coast. A generator thumps a little way off to power a projector and on a fabric screen a film plays in which a young girl is groomed by an older man with a gift of a mobile phone. Later she is raped.

Human Trafficking (Slavery) News Roundup: November 16, 2010

The Examiner: Global Human Trafficking Roundup (November 16, 2010)

EUROPE

Finland: A Somali born Swedish national was sentenced 60 days in jail for attempting to smuggle foreign women. He attempted to bring young Somali women from Stockholm to Turku. While woman testified that she paid smuggling fee to the man to come to Finland and traveled without identification,  the man claimed that he met her by chance at the airport.

Romania: Increasing number of Romanian women are working as prostitutes in Finland. Romania is one of the biggest hub of human trafficking in Europe, according to the report. One advocate in Finland says that as the number of women who are in sex slavery is increasing, the average of their age is becoming younger.

ASIA

Philippines: Immigration officers caught six Indian nationals who were heading to Malaysia. During the interrogation, they admitted that the human trafficking ring based in India facilitated their trip to Malaysia. The Immigration authority said that none of the Indians possessed proper documents. The Indians also will be deported immediately.

Cambodia: A journalist investigates Cambodia’s child prostitution with a British police.  When they walked into the bar and asked for younger girls, the madam brought three or four girls in the age between 12 and 13. And when they asked for children that are even younger, the madam said that she could arranged something with 6 or 7 year old off the premise.

Race and Gender in Immigration, Political Asylum and Human Trafficking

Greek tea workers, 1905-1915 (forced migration, agricultural labor)

Abstract:

The intersection of gender, race and ethnicity is apparent in the plight of female immigrants and asylum seekers in the United States.  Between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the United States each year, not counting those trafficked domestically. It is estimated that 79% of human trafficking victims are women and children.  Women and girls do occupy a subordinate position in patriarchal societies, facing  a particular proneness to hunger, poverty, exploitation and violence.  These vulnerabilities are exacerbated by illiteracy, low education levels, localized and internecine conflicts, and limited job opportunities. The search for better employment opportunities is a major motivating factor in immigration. The fact is that most individuals exploited in informal economies, the sex trade and and other forms of human trafficking are immigrant women.  The feminine face of poverty is one explanation for the overwhelming  femininity of the exploited underclass.  These findings are considered in this report that focuses attention on this issue to encourage the development and implementation of solutions that address these risks.