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U.N. deal forbids child soldiers
1.22.00   Steven Lee Myers NYTimes

The Clinton administration, under pressure from the Pentagon, had insisted for months that any agreement allow the United States the option of sending volunteers as young as 17 into combat. The administration's opposition had threatened to block efforts to revise the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to raise the minimum age for soldiers to 18 from 15.

But in internal discussion during the last two weeks, the Joint Chiefs of Staff dropped their opposition to a minimum age of 18 and accepted a compromise that would allow the armed services to continue recruiting and training 17-year-olds as they do today, but take " all feasible measures" to keep them out of combat until they turn 18. The U.S. reversal cleared the way for negotiators from 50 countries to agree on new guidelines governing children in combat after a final round of negotiations in Geneva. The protocol agreement, which the U.N. General Assembly must approve before governments can begin to ratify it, would also prohibit the drafting of children younger than 18 and would require countries to raise the minimum age for volunteers above 15, the convention's current standard. As with many treaties, the countries that agree to those international standards on child soldiers are expected to be the ones least likely to violate them. Some of the most egregious violators may not sign, while others may sign and simply ignore the provisions, given that the protocol provides no real enforcement to punish violators. But administration officials and other supporters of the protocol agreement said yesterday that it would help to stigmatize the use of children in combat, especially since the Convention on the Rights of the Child has strong international support. Only the United States and Somalia have yet to ratify the overall agreement. The U.S. compromise amounts to a tactical retreat by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had feared that a strict age limit would prohibit recruiters from signing up 17-year-olds, who today can join the military with parental consent. The Pentagon won the right to continue that practice but agreed to take still-unspecified steps to keep those youngest soldiers and sailors out of direct warfare, administration and defense officials said. " The chiefs weren't crazy about it, " said a defense official in Washington, " but we felt we could live with it with that kind of construction. "The new minimum will have little real effect on the U.S. military, which has nearly 1.4 million men and women in uniform. Last year, 49,900 enlistees were 17 when they signed up to join the armed services, but only 11,000 were still 17 when they reported to basic training. Of those, only 2,500 had not turned 18 by the time training was completed. But the Pentagon's retreat saved the administration the diplomatic embarrassment of blocking an agreement meant to prohibit the use of soldiers as young as 9 or 10 in some of the world's most brutal conflicts, a policy that officials at the State Department strongly advocated. Experts have estimated that as many as 300,000 children are fighting in wars from Africa to Chechnya to Latin America, many of them conscripted against their will. For a time, it looked as if the negotiations would end like those on an international treaty to ban land mines. In that case, the Pentagon's opposition to a broad ban kept the administration from signing the treaty, despite support from the State Department and Clinton. " This protocol is an important advance for human rights, " the president said in a statement released by the White House yesterday. " At the same time, it fully protects the military recruitment and readiness requirements of the United States. " Clinton signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1995, but has yet to submit it for ratification by the Senate, where it faces opposition from conservatives who argue that it usurps the rights of parents. Once the administration signs the protocol, it also will require Senate approval. Because of opposition to the convention overall, the administration may well submit only the new protocol for ratification, increasing the chances that the Senate would ratify it. But any move to ratify is not expected to take place until the end of the year at the earliest. The protocol also applies its standards to rebel groups or other factions that are not represented by any government and so not party to it. Still, proponents said they hoped that the desire for international recognition by some of those groups would curb the most extreme cases of putting children into combat.

Trafficking case exposes child servitude 10.17.07   Jennifer Kay AP Miami   The teen slept on a rolled-up mattress on the dining room floor and bathed in the backyard with a garden hose. For 6 years, she washed dishes, made beds and cooked for a family that beat her and hid her in a closet when visitors arrived. She never went to school. Simone Celestin's story sounds like a slave narrative from another century, but federal prosecutors say it happened in South Florida. They say Celestin is one of an unknown number of children and teens called "restaveks," who are hidden as slaves within the Haitian immigrant community. "Restavek" is a Haitian Creole word meaning "one who stays with." The term applies to an estimated 300,000 poor children in Haiti, mostly girls, who are given or sold by their parents to wealthier families, or taken from orphanages. The children work in exchange for food, shelter and the promise of school, but often end up victims of physical and sexual abuse, according to the U.S. State Department's annual report on human trafficking. Some sneak into the United States when their host family emigrates, then hide in a Haitian-American community, which is often loath to discuss the practice with outsiders. Haitian-American advocates recall about 30 instances that have come to light since 1999, when a 12-year-old came forward with an appalling story about being a Broward County couple's household servant and a sex slave for their son. But authorities believe those examples are probably just a small fraction of the actual number, because so few cases are reported. "Haitians don't see those kids as slaves," said Jean-Robert Cadet, a former restavek who published a memoir tracing his journey from Haiti's poverty to the American middle class. Marleine Bastien, executive director of Haitian Women of Miami, said some Haitians view the practice as an informal foster care system. "They may feel they were helping the little child by bringing the child here and express bewilderment that they are being prosecuted for 'doing the right thing,'" Bastien said. Maude Paulin, a teacher, and her mother, Evelyn Theodore, are scheduled to stand trial in January on federal charges that they illegally brought Celestin into the country in 1999 and kept her in involuntary servitude. Prosecutors say Celestin, then 14, was taken from an orphanage Theodore owned in Haiti, the least developed country in the western hemisphere. Paulin's ex-husband is also charged with human trafficking, and her sister faces forced labor charges. All four could spend decades in prison if convicted. Richard Dansoh, Paulin's attorney, said this is a case of cultural misunderstanding. He said Celestin had been the favorite of Paulin's late father at the orphanage, and the family took her in at his wishes. "They took her to improve her chances of having a good life. This is not a slavery case," Dansoh said. Dansoh said Celestin could not be enrolled in school because she lacked the proper documents, but Paulin home-schooled the girl. Celestin protested when the family tried to curtail her involvement with older men who had promised to help her gain permanent residency in the U.S., he said. Paulin and her family were trying to "shield her from a life of inappropriate relationships," Dansoh said. Prosecutors and Celestin's immigration attorney declined to comment because her case is pending. They declined to make her available for this story. It's not clear how Celestin's situation came to the attention of authorities. U.S. immigration authorities and advocates call human trafficking a hidden crime because victims do not contact police. They say law enforcement and school officials often miss the warning signs in young people, such as missing identification, isolation or behavioral problems. Advocates say it's difficult to coax suspected restaveks to open up, even when they are identified, because they are told their work supports family members back in Haiti, and they fear relatives will suffer retribution. Cadet remembers the shame he felt as a teenager when a high school teacher discovered he was homeless and asked why. Cadet spent his childhood in Haiti as a restavek for a prostitute and her son, then continued working for them after the family emigrated to New York. They kicked him out when school interfered with his chores. "For me to tell that teacher I was a restavek was like telling him I was a dog. In Haiti, a restavek and a dog share the same social status. For me to tell this man that, I am not really a human being," said Cadet, who is now a college professor and an advocate for restaveks. Danielle Romer, president of Haitian Support Inc. in Homestead, recalled one 15-year-old girl whose experience showed why restaveks don't reach for help: "She was working a.m. to p.m., not going to school, but where she sleeps is better than what she had in Haiti." Dwa Fanm, a Brooklyn-based women's rights organization, decided in 2004 not to renew a federal grant for services directed at Haitian restaveks because the 20 women who came forward did not want to register as human trafficking victims. Registration would have allowed them to apply for asylum or specific visas to stay in the U.S. "As soon as we said, 'You have to report it, we have to report it so you can be certified,' they said, 'Never mind, I've changed my mind,'" said Farah Tanis, the group's executive director. "They didn't want to prosecute. It makes sense; people are afraid for their lives."

Coming clean after a 'dirty war' 1.27.00   commentary L.A. Times An Argentine judge has ordered the arrest of 6 more military officers on charges of kidnapping the children of dissidents during Argentina's "dirty war" of 1976-1983. 9 were already being held. The latest action takes human rights groups and the families of the victims closer to establishing what happened to prison-born infants and bringing to justice the leaders of the military junta. Only the truth will permit the Argentines to clear up their past and rebuild their society. In those chilling years, during which security forces killed untold numbers of the generals' opponents, many pregnant women suffered another brutal fate. They were held until they delivered their babies, who then were sold or given to members of the regime who wanted a child. During recent court proceedings, one witness testified, "Newborn babies were given away like kitties … especially those who were white." Some of the top junta leaders were tried and convicted but subsequently given amnesty by then-President Carlos Menem. Now that Argentina has a new president, a group known as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, composed of women who march on the main square in Buenos Aires seeking justice, has asked for an investigation into whether there was a systematic plan for adoption of as many as 200 children born to prisoners, some of whom were then executed. Child kidnapping was not covered by the presidential pardons granted by Menem. So far, the parentage of at least 60 of these children has been documented. But the relatives of the victims of Argentina's dirty war want to know how many more babies were sold or given away. The grandmothers are asking that blood samples be taken from children who they suspect were taken from their mothers. Matching blood types and DNA could solve the puzzle. The victims of the dirty war are owed that and more.

Author struggles with temptation to buy a slave
3.11.08   Anthony Brooks NPR Day to Day

Brooks: Slavery exists today on an unprecedented level around the world, in Africa, in Europe, Asia, South Asia, here in the U.S. What do we mean by slavery in this modern age?
B. Skinner: Essentially what we're talking about is what we were talking about 150 years ago, those forced to work under threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence. The critical difference is that today slavery is illegal everywhere.

Brooks: To understand how people are bought and sold into slavery, you traveled to 12 different countries, you met with slaves, survivors, and the traffickers that sell them. You went to Haiti and you found a slave broker and actually negotiated with him.
B. Skinner: In Haiti, when I was there, which was the fall of 2005, there was no functional govt. The U.N. peacekeepers were basically keeping order. Parts of it were like the Wild West. However, the part where I went to, to find this individual, was a very clean street in broad daylight.
pulled up in a car, rolled down the window, somebody came over and said do you want to get a person?

Brooks: You taped that conversation we play for listeners now.

B. Skinner: How quickly do you think it would be possible to bring a child in? Somebody who could clean, somebody who I'd give a place to stay. I'd take care of food and a place to stay. But I'm wondering how much that would cost.
Unidentified Woman: For him to go out and find someone to do that?
B. Skinner: Yeah, yeah.
Unidentified Woman: Okay. (Foreign language spoken)
Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)
Unidentified Woman: That would be a hundred U.S. Which is 800 Haitian.
B. Skinner: That seems like a lot. Could you bring your fee down to 50 U.S.?

Brooks: With this trafficker in Haiti, you have the option of sort of negotiating what kind of slave. In other words, someone is just going to take care of your house or perhaps you're interested in someone who is going to also provide sexual favors. So there's all different kinds of slaves as well that he would make available.
B. Skinner: I said would it be possible to have somebody who would be a partner, the term that he used. My translator made it clear that this meant sexual partner as well as a house slave, somebody who would cook and clean. He didn't think twice about it and said of course. At that point, I said I wanted a girl, and we started talking about a nine-year-old girl.

Brooks: How is modern slavery different than the slavery we read about in history books? Is it different at all?
B. Skinner: It is absolutely different in the sense that in 1850 a slave would cost roughly $30-40,000 like investing in a Mercedes. Today you can go to Haiti and you can buy a nine-year-old girl to use as a sexual and a domestic slave for $50. So the devaluation of human life is incredibly pronounced.

Brooks: This idea of a kind of debt slavery shows up a lot in South Asia. How does that work?
B. Skinner: That bondage is by far the largest chunk of modern-day slavery worldwide. I spent time, for example, and I go into the details of his life, with a man who I call Ganu(ph); he asked me to change his first name. His slavery began three generations ago when his grandfather took a loan of 73 cents. Three generations later he's still enslaved, forced to work under threat of violence and real violence; his slave master was a serial killer known by local police and never paid.

Brooks: More than a dozen international conventions and treaties that have been signed that outlaw slavery. Why does it persist?
B. Skinner: It persists largely because of govt inaction and corruption, because there is a general belief among govts and among the public that slavery no longer exists. Minimum numbers we're talking about here from Justice and State dept estimates are between 14,500 and 17,500 every year. Essentially, every half-hour another person becomes a slave in the United States.

Brooks: What kind of slaves are they? B. Skinner: Slaves in the United States are not representative of the slaves in the world at large in that a slim majority are trafficked into commercial sex in the United States, around 50 percent. A good deal are enslaved in agricultural or low-level industries. There have been cases of slaves in Florida, orange fields in Texas, in South Texas.
Beyond that, there are untold number of slaves, and this is the grayest of gray areas that are trafficked into domestic slavery.

Brooks: In developed countries, when people talk about slavery, they're really just thinking about sex slavery. But that is only a small fraction of the problem, correct?
B. Skinner: True. If you take 16 slaves, 15 of them will not be enslaved in commercial sex.

Brooks: Before you set out to meet slaves and traffickers, you resolved to maintain a kind of journalistic distance. You write that you would observe but not engage. That must have been very difficult at times for you.
B. Skinner: It's one thing when you're planning an effort like this, a project like this, to say this is a work of journalism, I'm not going to interfere with my subjects. It's another thing when you actually see in an underground brothel in Bucharest a young woman who has the visible effect of Down syndrome, who you know is being raped several times a day, and when this girl is offered to me in trade for a used car, and when I walked away from that, that's not an easy thing to do, and to be honest, it stays with me.

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