Several suffered from hypothermia during journey and some fainted from exposure to exhaust fumes
Austrian police found eight people from Turkey hidden in life-threatening conditions in a narrow wooden pallet box attached to the underside of a lorry.
Police said the group had been trafficked from Romania via Hungary. Several of them suffered from hypothermia during the trip in freezing temperatures, and some fainted because they were exposed to exhaust fumes for hours.
Continue reading...Four arrests of cult-like criminal gang members made in southern Italy after Nigerian woman forced into prostitution comes forward
Four alleged members of the Nigerian mafia have been arrested in southern Italy after a young sex trafficking survivor spoke out against them.
The men, who were arrested in Palermo and Taranto in the early hours of Tuesday, allegedly belong to the feared Black Axe, a cult-like criminal gang that emerged in the 1970s at the University of Benin, according to police.
Continue reading...An impoverished teen seeks to escape the clutches of a human trafficker in Alexandre Moratto’s complex drama
Brazilian director Alexandre Moratto’s follow-up to his award-winning debut Socrates, 7 Prisoners delves into the subject of modern slavery through the eyes of 18-year-old Mateus (Christian Malheiros, excellent). In order to support his family, Mateus takes a job in the city, but finds himself imprisoned and working off a seemingly endless debt to his employer (Rodrigo Santoro). His initial reaction is desperation and anger, but Mateus is smart and negotiates with his captor on behalf of his fellow workers. The rather on-the-nose storytelling grows increasingly complex and interesting the further that the protagonist ventures into morally ambiguous territory.
In cinemas and on Netflix from 11 November
Continue reading...Study prompts call for reforms to safeguard conditions of fishers from countries including the Philippines, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia
Racist insults, verbal abuse, long working hours with few breaks and pay below the legal minimum wage are “common workplace experiences” of migrant workers in the Irish fishing sector, says a new study.
The report, conducted by Maynooth University’s Department of Law, comes four months after a damning assessment by the US state department over Ireland’s failure to combat human trafficking, which stated that undocumented workers on Irish vessels are vulnerable to trafficking and forced labour.
Continue reading...Damning report highlights greater risk of EU worker exploitation and vulnerability of undocumented migrants
A damning new report on trafficking in the UK has warned that Brexit and the Home Office’s new plan for immigration are increasing the risks to trafficking victims.
The report has also found links between terrorism and trafficking in cases involving families from the UK ending up with Islamic State in Syria and an increase in the recruitment of trafficking victims via social media.
Continue reading...A decades-long policy of criminalising asylum seekers is filling prisons with innocent men, according to analysis by rights groups
Italian police have arrested more than 2,500 migrants for smuggling or aiding illegal immigration since 2013, often using anti-mafia laws to bring charges, according to the first comprehensive analysis of official data on the criminalisation of refugees and asylum seekers in Italy.
The report by three migrant rights groups has collected police data and analysed more than 1,000 criminal cases brought by prosecutors against refugees accused of driving vessels carrying asylum seekers across the Mediterranean.
Continue reading...Droughts and floods forcing workers from rural areas, leading to their exploitation in cities, report warns
Millions of people forced to leave their homes because of severe drought and powerful cyclones are at risk of modern slavery and human trafficking over the coming decades, a new report warns.
The climate crisis and the increasing frequency of extreme weather disasters including floods, droughts and megafires are having a devastating effect on the livelihoods of people already living in poverty and making them more vulnerable to slavery, according to the report, published today.
Continue reading...As the UK pours millions into security measures, migrants say the gangs who control the Channel just get more powerful
“Sorry, my battery’s low because I drained it watching YouTube tutorials on how to assemble dinghies,” Abuzar says. He is speaking on a video call from the abandoned shed in Calais he calls home. “I want to join my brother for asylum in the UK, but I have to work for smugglers because I don’t have enough money to pay for the crossing.
“They hide boat parts on the beaches for me to assemble at night, but I’m so scared– – if I mess it up, children could drown on the boat.”
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China
Continue reading...Rights groups warn many more survivors face being locked up after MPs back Home Office change
More victims of trafficking will be locked up in detention and forcibly removed from the UK after MPs approved a change in Home Office rules relating to this vulnerable group, campaigners have warned.
MPs recently confirmed what is known as a statutory instrument. This change in rules relating to the detention of trafficking victims comes into force on 25 May and will require them to provide a higher standard of proof that they should not be detained.
Continue reading...Last week, a dinghy full of migrants sank near Libya. Those who were part of the rescue mission tell of a needless tragedy
The weather was already turning when the distress call went out. A rubber dinghy with 130 people on board was adrift in the choppy Mediterranean waters.
On the bridge of the Ocean Viking, one of the only remaining NGO rescue boats operational in the Mediterranean, 121 nautical miles west, stood Luisa Albera, staring anxiously at her computer screen and then out at the rising storm and falling light at sea.
Continue reading...Investigation finds one in six were solo and under 15, as experts say cross-border cooperation ‘nonexistent’
At least 18,000 unaccompanied child migrants have disappeared after arriving in European countries including Greece, Italy and Germany.
An investigation by the Guardian and the cross-border journalism collective Lost in Europe found that 18,292 unaccompanied child migrants went missing in Europe between January 2018 and December 2020 – equivalent to nearly 17 children a day.
Continue reading...As the Biden administration enlists its neighbours in attempts to slow the flow of people, families seeking a future free from hunger and violence journey on
Groups of men, women and children stepped off small boats and on to Mexican soil without showing their documents to anyone.
Drivers quickly bundled them into taxis which sped past an immigration office to a nearby crossroad, where the travelers climbed into a vans for the next leg of their journey toward the US border.
Continue reading...Abd al-Rahman Milad, AKA Bija, is accused by UN of being directly involved in sinking migrant boats
Libyan authorities have released a man described as one of the world’s most wanted human traffickers, who was placed under sanctions by the UN security council for being directly involved in the sinking of migrant boats.
The coastguard commander Abd al-Rahman Milad, known by his alias Bija, is suspected of being part of a criminal network operating in Zawiyah in north-west Libya. He was arrested last October but was freed on Sunday after the military attorney general of Tripoli dropped charges against him “for lack of evidence”.
Continue reading...Chocolate companies are among the defendants named in a lawsuit brought by former child workers in Ivory Coast
Eight children who claim they were used as slave labour on cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast have launched legal action against the world’s biggest chocolate companies. They accuse the corporations of aiding and abetting the illegal enslavement of “thousands” of children on cocoa farms in their supply chains.
Nestlé, Cargill, Barry Callebaut, Mars, Olam, Hershey and Mondelēz have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by the human rights firm International Rights Advocates (IRA), on behalf of eight former child slaves who say they were forced to work without pay on cocoa plantations in the west African country.
The plaintiffs, all of whom are originally from Mali and are now young adults, are seeking damages for forced labour and further compensation for unjust enrichment, negligent supervision and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Dozens of women from the Pacific island victims of brazen trafficking ring that operated for years
Rolson Price still scans Facebook for her picture. He’s seen her occasionally, at the periphery of someone else’s photo, instantly recognisable.
But he’s never met her, and concedes he never will.
Continue reading...Criminal networks are depending on the chaos of Covid and Brexit. Now more than ever we need focus and international cooperation to prevent further tragedies
Trials in the UK of the drivers and haulage organisers involved in the Essex lorry tragedy in which 39 Vietnamese migrants perished ended in guilty pleas and convictions. Vietnam also convicted the agents who brokered the victims’ journeys to the UK and sentenced them to terms of imprisonment.
While these are positive developments in achieving some measure of justice for the victims, they won’t do anything to stem the smuggling and trafficking of Vietnamese migrants to the UK. No justice system has reached the actual masterminds and profiteers behind this horrific crime: the organised crime groups.
Continue reading...2020 led to surges in everything from domestic abuse to black markets in fake vaccines
By the end of March, one week into the UK’s first lockdown, recorded crime in Lancashire had dropped by a startling 40% compared with the four-year average.
“At first there was some mild panic,” says DCI Eric Halford, of Lancashire Constabulary. “Most senior officers expected a surge in demand.”
Continue reading...Fleeing Ethiopia and Somalia, refugees made their way across the world’s busiest migration route, only to be left in the hands of smugglers in a lawless land
Saudi Arabia was Tigrit’s dream: a place where she could find work as a cleaner or maid, and send money back to her husband and young daughter in Ethiopia. Now, like hundreds of thousands of East Africans who have left home and travelled across the Red Sea in search of a better life, she finds herself stranded in Yemen instead.
“We’re stuck. I don’t have food or money for phone credit to call home. I don’t have anything,” she said, sitting on the floor in a building site with no electricity or running water on the edge of the desert.
Continue reading...Sex traffickers can make profits of over £1m a year per brothel – and Covid lockdowns have only made it easier for them to operate
Three weeks ago, police entered a brothel in south-east England after receiving intelligence about criminal activity there. Inside, they found eight Romanian women wearing face shields and masks, and laminated Covid-19 health and safety sheets on the wall. An industrial-size bottle of hand sanitiser stood by the front door.
“On the surface, this did not look like a place where criminality and sexual exploitation was taking place,” says Cristina Huddleston, a trafficking victim support specialist who joined the raid that evening.
Continue reading...