Fil-Am businesswoman takes human trafficking raps

(New York)  - A Fil-Am businesswoman once recognized as among the top Asian American entrepreneurs in the U.S faces a federal court lawsuit that accuses her of human trafficking, labor-law violations as well as other offenses. Marissa Teves Beck is the President of the NY-based staffing company Advanced Professional Marketing Inc. She is charged with holding Leser Lee Javier in “indentured servitude” paying him less than half of the prevailing wage as well as the overtime fees owed him. John Howley is the lawyer representing Mr. Javier and also alleges that Beck charged his client thousands of dollars in fees for an H1-B visa application, which is the required visa for foreign nationals to work in the country. Beck then kept Javier from asserting his rights by threatening to withdraw his application. “The accusations are detailed in Javier’s suit filed in New York Southern District Court on May 1. The suit also names Beck’s husband, Henry, and six of the couple’s companies as defendants. The case could go to trial in March or April.”

Full account available at

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/323930/pinoyabroad/news/fil-am-businesswoman-faces-human-trafficking-raps

Group Says South Dakota Has Poorest Human Trafficking Laws

(Sioux Falls,  S.D) – Washington D.C based Polaris Project says South Dakota lacks in efforts to combat human trafficking. These include “a lack in safe harbor laws for underage victims doesn’t require training on human trafficking for law officers, doesn’t seize assets obtained through trafficking, hasn’t lowered its burden of proof for sex crimes involving juveniles, and doesn’t allow sex trafficking victims to easily purge prostitution convictions from their record.” The Governor and Attorney General of the state, Dennis Daugaard and Marty Jackley respectively, see this is an opportunity for the state to improve.

Full account available

http://www.drgnews.com/2013/08/15/group-says-sd-has-poorest-human-trafficking-laws/

Dozens of states pass laws to fight human trafficking

The Polaris Project, a non-profit group to end human trafficking, has announced that for the first time, a majority of states have enacted laws to battle human trafficking. Last year, legislatures in 39 states passed laws against trafficking. However, comparing states may prove to be a problem because there remains a lack of data as to the pervasiveness of the problem and what would actually work to lead to more prosecutions. Polaris Project has been ranking states for four years on their anti-trafficking school and considers whether laws passed by these states would “lower the burden of proof for prosecuting trafficking of minors, vacate convictions of trafficking victims and mandate training for law enforcement officials.” The rankings are based on a twelve-point scale and then divided into four tiers. Washington and New Jersey ranked the highest among the states achieving perfect scores of 12, while South Dakota is the only state in the bottom tier. In all, 32 states are included in the top tier. Tier one states have passed “significant laws” while tier four states have not even made minimal effort.

Full account available at

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/14/human-trafficking-state-laws/2652611/

Immigration officers intercept 21 alleged human-trafficking victims at NAIA

Immigration authorities on Wednesday, August 14, stopped 21 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW’s) from leaving the Ninoy Aquino International Airport as they were potential victims of human trafficking. Officer-in-Charge Siegfred Mison said that the workers were intercepted when they had presented questionable travel documents. This has been the latest human trafficking case that the Bureau of Immigration has encountered. Last August 7, 12 workers were stopped from travelling to Singapore for similar reasons. The group posed as travellers who would be heading to Dubai as their final destination for vacation, however upon questioning it was found that the answers given were inconsistent. Two days after, another group of 9 travellers were stopped from travelling. ““We reiterate our warning to these [human-trafficking] syndicates: Stop employing various schemes to trick our immigration officers into allowing their victims to leave because it will not work,” Mison said.”

Full account available at

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/322044/pinoyabroad/crime/immigration-officers-intercept-21-alleged-human-trafficking-victims-at-naia

Slave maids cost the price of a smart phone

“If you ask young people what they could get for U.S. $200 or less, their answers would probably include a tablet, a smart phone, or a designer bag. Not on the list, a foreign maid - unless you live in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, or any country in the Middle East. In the United States, maids are for the rich and famous. Modern-day slavery in the western world commonly wears the face of a prostitute, a trafficked child, or an illegal migrant exploited by his or her employer. For third world countries, human slavery often has the face of a domestic worker isolated from society and kept invisible inside private homes of their employers.”

Susan V. Ople is the founder of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center and Training Institute. The center offers free legal help to human trafficking survivors. Ms. Ople was recently named the U.S State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Hero of 2013.

The full account of Ms. Ople’s article is available at

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/09/slave-maids-cost-the-price-of-a-smart-phone/