People noisily made haste to find seats in a Royce Hall
auditorium adorned with flags from the international community on
Tuesday night ““ but they were not there for the type of
performance that usually takes place inside the building during
evening hours.
It was an event meant to offer insight into the callous reality
of human trafficking and its prevalence in places most don’t
expect, including the United States.
UCLA played host to the second annual Human Trafficking
Conference, a forum to “raise awareness of human trafficking
and to shed light on where it is happening, the magnitude of the
issue and the level of derogation that exists,” said Mary
Shuttleworth, president of the International Foundation for Human
Rights.
Human trafficking refers to the movement of people against their
will for the purpose of sexual or labor exploitation.
An estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children are
trafficked into the United States each year, and approximately 80
percent are female and 50 percent are minors, according to the U.S.
Department of State database.
“It’s amazing that we think we’re isolated,
but at the same time we live in a city with high prevalence of
human trafficking,” said Chris Liem, a second-year art
student. “I don’t think I’m going to change the
world, but I think just being more aware may definitely help change
something.”
A recent study by the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center found more
than 500 cases of forced labor in California in 2005, said Imelda
Buncab of Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, Los
Angeles.
She said the study concluded that Los Angeles had the highest
number of cases of forced labor among cities in California, with
San Francisco second.
Guest speaker Dottie Laster, the administrator of the Orange
County Human Trafficking Task Force, discussed ways to become
active participants for the cause.
Laster said people can take the initiative by holding
conferences and continuing efforts to educate.
Human traffickers do not grant basic human rights to those who
fall victim to that exploitation, Shuttleworth said. They are often
used as human shields in war, as laborers in dangerous conditions
and as prostitutes or for other forms of sexual exploitation.
At the start of the conference, Shuttleworth described countries
as origin countries, or places where victims of human trafficking
usually come from; transit countries, or areas that serve as
facilitators to the traffickers’ final destinations; and
finally, destination countries or user countries, where traffickers
exploit the victims.
The United States was named as a destination country.
And while this sort of black market may seem distant to most, an
estimated 14,000 people are trafficked into the U.S. every year,
according to a report by the U.S. Attorney General in 2005.
To combat human trafficking in the United States, President Bush
signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of
2003, which increased responsibilities of the U.S. government for
anti-trafficking measures.
Shuttleworth and the International Foundation for Human Rights
are hoping to solve the international problem with short-term goals
that may eventually help achieve the long-term goal of ending human
trafficking.
The foundation hopes to educate others and teach children the
United Nations declaration of human rights to which they are
entitled.
“We hope (those children) will become advocates of
anti-trafficking and help protect the human rights of
others,” Shuttleworth said.
Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI), a daughter branch
of the foundation, also has a chapter within the UCLA campus.
Kay D’Souza, president of YHRI, said she felt compelled to
become involved because “basic rights is something everyone
should know about even if they are taken for granted or, more
importantly, if they are denied (human rights).”