Category Archives: Transhuman News

By Judith Kelley By Judith Kelley July 3 at 6:00 AM

The State Department has released its annual Trafficking in Persons report on human trafficking. The big headline was that China was downgraded to Tier 3, the lowest ranking, suggesting that the Trump administration had decided to rebuke China by grouping it with the likes of Syria, Iran and North Korea.

The report grades countries on how well or poorly they are doing in combating human trafficking. This approach which I call Scorecard Diplomacy has become increasingly important in international relations. Countries often really care about their scores. Heres how it works.

What is a scorecard?

A scorecard is a way of rating or ranking how countries or other actors perform in a given policy area. These scorecards are not one-off rankings; they recur, usually yearly.

[International agreements to prohibit child labor dont always work. Heres why.]

Why should states, or anyone else, care about scorecards? First of all, they are easier to understand and digest than complicated policy reports. Instead of emphasizing detailed data, they sort countries into categories (e.g., countries that are succeeding vs. countries that are failing), or rank them with some score, showing which countries are at the top and at the bottom. These categories and rankings are framed to pressure the countries being ranked. For example, if your country is at the bottom of a well-respected scorecard for Ease of Doing Business, you might find that international businesses start to avoid investing in your economy.

Beth Simmons and I have data on more than 180 scorecards set up by countries, international organizations and nongovernmental organizations. More and more scorecards have been appearing, covering more and more topics. The U.S. government has scorecards for areas as varied as aid, religious freedom, narcotics control, child laborand international property rights protection.

This proliferation of scorecards has brought more and more critiques. Sometimes thescorecards are based on questionable data, or questionable ways of organizing the data. Yet, even if they are biased or based on dubious assumptions, scorecards do influence behavior. Why?

Heres why these scorecards are more than just scraps of paper

My recent book on the TIP report on human trafficking explains what I call the cycle of scorecard diplomacy. The TIP report doesnt just rank countries. Producing the report involves U.S. diplomats on the ground engaging with governments year-round and orchestrating indirect pressure by media and civil society.

These combined efforts make governments concerned about their ratings. Officials react strongly to the report, particularly to the tier that their country falls into. U.S. diplomats wrote in a cable to Washington that one Albanian officials face went pale when told ofhis countrys low rating. Thats hard to fake! Many governments criticize the report in publicbut cooperate with the U.S. in private. This suggests that these grades are really getting to governments. Even allies such as Israel feel the sting. In 2009, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told the Knesset subcommittee analyzing the TIP report that:

A U.S. government report lumping Israel together with states such as Afghanistan, Jordan and Botswana in its success in combating human trafficking has troubling political implications for Israel. It has a direct impact on Israels standing in the international community.

Because countries are rated again and again, they have an incentive to improve their behavior in the hopes of boosting future grades. As a result, states pay more sustained attention to an issue than they would do if they were just shamed in an ad hoc way.

[Human rights groups are secretly U.S. agents. True or false?]

Simmons and I have shown that countries criminalize human trafficking more quickly when they are included in the report, get worse grades or see their grades drop. My work on TIP shows that this is not just because countries fear being sanctioned.The stigma of the scorecard makes states change their behavior. Countries that criminalize trafficking also work harder on related efforts to fight the problem. In many countries, the TIP report has led states to set up new institutions, to train judges and police, to improve shelters, and to increase trafficking prosecutions and convictions. Thus scorecards can prompt real changes.

But scorecards have their limits

None of this is to say that scorecards are universally successful. Critics of scorecards are correct when they say, for instance, that scorecards are often ideologically loaded and based on dubious statistics. Sometimes countries try to game the rankings rather than make genuine improvements, as Belarus has tried with TIP. When these problems combine, they may even be dangerous because they encourage unwise or wasteful reforms.

Still, all effective tools can be dangerous if used badly. The TIP report has been criticized for inconsistency, shifting goal posts and U.S. arrogance. Yet in a global survey that I did with Andrew Heiss of nearly 500 anti-trafficking organizations, more than 60 said they think the United States is an important actor in the countries where they work, with more than a quarter saying that the United States is the most important actor. Amazingly, only two organizations had a negative view. And people working for international organizations have told me that they appreciate the report enormously.

[Canada turns 150 today and its enjoying a new global role]

Its hard for international organizations to criticize states frankly over sensitive problems, since they rely on those governments for funding, support and cooperation. At their best, scorecards can hold governments accountable and help spread solutions. Thats why its important to understand exactly how they can do this and when they succeed or fail.

Judith Kelley is the Kevin D. Gorter professor of public policy and political science and a senior associate dean at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Her bookScorecard Diplomacy: Grading States to Influence their Reputation and Behavioris recently out from Cambridge University Press.

Original post:
The State Department just released its human trafficking report. Here's why it matters. - Washington Post

A Jacksonville City Councilman wants more types of businesses to be required to post human-trafficking awareness signs.

Although a 2015 state law requires the signs in strip clubs and massage parlors, labor trafficking often happens in different types of establishments.

Under a city ordinance, Jacksonville massage parlors and adult entertainment spots can be fined $500 if they dont post signs, printed out online, with trafficking awareness information, including the phone number for the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline: 1 (888) 373-7888.

After City Council adopted the policy last year, Councilman Tommy Hazouri has a new bill.

(It) would increase the awareness signage for human trafficking around the city, specifically at businesses that are hotbeds for human trafficking, he said.

The bill adds hotels and restaurants to the list of establishments required to post the signs under state and city laws.

Northeast Florida attorney Crystal Freed, who almost exclusively represents victims of trafficking, agrees with the expansion.

I think its a move in a positive direction because its adding establishments other than the typical venues that you find sex trafficking, Freed said.

She said the original city ordinance ignored restaurant and hotel workers, as well as support staff like maintenance workers, who are targets for labor trafficking.

And Freed said she hopes Hazouris bill isnt the end of the conversation because the community needs better education about how to spot trafficking. Much of it happens in home services, like housekeeping or lawn care, she said.

This March, Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Lt. Kevin Goff told the City Council that labor trafficking is 10 times harder to investigate than sex trafficking. And though Hazouri is targeting labor trafficking with his hotel signage, Undersheriff Pat Ivey told Council last year that sex trafficking is prevalent in the more than 150 hotels in Jacksonville.

Florida ranks third in the country for the number of human trafficking cases documented by the national resource center database. Last year, the top referrer of callers to the hotline was a Department of the State Know Your Rights pamphlet given to those who get work visas.

Hazouri says hes working out some logistics of his bill, like who would be responsible for monitoring restaurants and whether all of them would have to post the signs. He said hell soon schedule a workshop with other Council members, the state attorney's office and JSO.

State law already requires the signs be posted in other well-traveled places, including highway rest areas, emergency rooms and airports.

Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride.

See original here:
More Businesses Would Promote Human-Trafficking Awareness Under Jacksonville Bill - WLRN

Abdulrazag Shneeti, a spokesman for the governments Department for Combating Illegal Migration, did not respond to repeated calls for comment.

The Zawiyah facility known as the al-Nasr detention center was set up by the al-Nasr Brigade, a militia involved in oil and human smuggling that has links to the coast guard, U.N. investigators said in a report released in June. Christine Petre, an IOM spokeswoman, said the facility is now being run by the Western-backed government, but migrants and coast guard members said the militia and its tribesmen are still in charge.

Migrants sleep and eat on the dirty floors. Lunch is a six-inch loaf of bread. Dinner is a plate of macaroni.

On a recent day, the mattresses had been taken away from a group in a cell as punishment for fighting, said Fathi al-Far, the centers director. Last year, he said, four migrants were killed and a guard was injured in clashes.

An inmate in poor health is tended to by a friend after passing out at the al-Nasr detention center on May 24.

Two migrants died of treatable problems in the past two years, Far said. He has been awaiting a water purifier for months. Nearby, an Algerian migrant lay on the floor against a wall, clutching his stomach and writhing in pain. But there was no doctor to help him.

Guards are quick to give beatings, several migrants said.

It happens, Far said.

In their report, U.N. investigators described Far as a former army colonel and said that the center is used to sell migrants to other smugglers.

Far acknowledged that smugglers come to the center to take migrants but said he is unable to stop them. Guards or militia members call the migrants families to extort cash if they pay, the migrant is released and put back on a boat to Europe.

The guards can do anything, Far said. They have the keys to the cells.

See the rest here:
'They are not treated like humans' - Washington Post