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News from Vienna

2/13/2008

photos and news reports from the Vienna Forum

courtesy of UN.GIFT

Vienna, Austria
13 February 2008

Ricky Martin makes global appeal: "I beg you to act now"

Policy makers and celebrities have today launched an unprecedented global appeal to both recognise the scale and prevalence of human trafficking, and for co-ordinated action to be taken to fight it. They were speaking at the opening session of the Vienna Forum, the first-ever global forum to fight human trafficking.

Ricky Martin, the Puerto Rican, Grammy Award-winning pop star, said: "Human trafficking is a vicious violation of human rights; it has no place in our world and I beg you to act now".

Ursula Plassnik, Minister for European and International Affairs of the Republic of Austria, said: "We simply cannot tolerate human beings being bought, sold and hired like commodities. Each and every one of us is being called upon to act".

Suzanne Mubarak, the First Lady of Egypt and President of the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement, said: "human trafficking is a pervasive cancer... anyone who knows the truth about the horrors of human trafficking cannot condone it".

Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, accused law enforcement authorities around the world of demonstrating "benign neglect" and appealed for co-ordinated action to fight the " monster" of human trafficking.

Emma Thompson, the Oscar-winning actress and Chair of the Helen Bamber Foundation, who yesterday opened an art installation mapping the journey of a trafficking victim, told the Forum the harrowing story of a Moldovan woman who was trafficked to the UK and forced to work as a prostitute, and whose experience convinced Emma Thompson of the need for action.

The Vienna Forum to Fight Human Trafficking is today bringing together 1,200 experts, legislators, law enforcement teams, business leaders, NGO representatives and trafficking victims from 116 countries. It will be focusing on the three key elements of human trafficking - its root causes, its social and economic impact, and the actions needed to eradicate it.

Today, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) launched a witness protection manual to assist UN Member States develop comprehensive programs for the protection of victims and witnesses of crime. The "Good Practices in the Protection of Witnesses in Criminal Proceedings Involving Organized Crime" is just one of a number of new tools being launched at the Forum to address human trafficking. Witness protection programs are considered a key tool in the dismantling of human trafficking networks as well as combating other forms of organized crime.

The Vienna Forum is being convened by the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN.GIFT) which was established in recognition of the fact that human trafficking takes many forms and that a co-ordinated and united approach is required. UN.GIFT was launched in March 2007 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) together with the International Labour Organization (ILO); the International Organization for Migration (IOM); the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).

Source: UN.GIFT.ORG

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courtesy of UN.GIFT

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Agence France-Presse
First Posted 20:11:00 02/13/2008

VIENNA - British actress Emma Thompson, Latino pop star Ricky Martin and Egypt's First Lady Suzanne Mubarak led international calls for an end to human trafficking at a UN forum on Wednesday.

The three were among guest speakers at the opening of a three-day anti-human trafficking conference, the first ever to be organized by the UN on what is estimated to be a multi-billion-dollar industry.

"When you look at the range of talent in this room, you would position UN.GIFT (the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking) between Woodstock and Davos," said Antonio Maria Costa, director general of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in his welcoming speech.

"Government statements, expert discussions, along with music, speeches, videos, films and art to inspire us all. I hope, by the end of the forum, a roadmap will be developed to guide us forward," Costa said.

And he continued: "This is not an inter-governmental conference, nor is it a talk shop. Think of it more as a rally. We march together."

Attending the event were around 1,200 experts, law enforcement teams, business leaders, NGO representatives and trafficking victims.

Human-trafficking is involved in a number of crimes, ranging from forced labor and sexual exploitation to the removal of organs and body parts.

According to UN estimates, around 2.5 million people are being trafficked around the world at any given time, and 80 percent of those are women and children.

The estimated global annual profits made from the exploitation of all trafficked force labor are $31.6 billion.

Puerto Rican pop star Martin, who has set up his own child welfare foundation, said that once he had become aware of the problem of human trafficking, he could not simply stand by and do nothing.

"Once I knew about it, I could not keep quiet," he said.

"I witnessed the horrors of human trafficking on a trip to India, where I saved three little girls from the streets of Calcutta. You have a problem. You know what was going on and if you won't do anything. You allow it to happen. With my foundation, I hope to ensure that every child has the right to be a child."

Accompanying the forum are a number of other events, including a film festival and a harrowing new art installation, which graphically depicts the terrifying ordeal of a woman sold into the sex trade.

The installation, entitled "Journey", was conceived by actress Emma Thompson in close collaboration with a Moldovan woman, named only as Elena, who was trafficked into the UK sex industry when she was just 18.

It comprises seven shipping containers which the spectator passes through, with each container depicting a particular stage of Elena's journey.

It ranges from her tiny home village in Moldova, via the frightening night-time lorry drive across Europe to the stinking, filthy, airless room in a London brothel, where she was incarcerated and forced to "service" as many as 40 men a day.

The room is indeed the most disturbing part of the exhibit, with its oppressive stench and squalor.

"Journey" already drew crowds of 15,000 when it was displayed in London's Trafalgar Square last year.

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courtesy of UN.GIFT

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