lost & found

From CNN's Freedom Project blog publi12/14/11
(CNN) - Google Inc. announced Wednesday that it's providing $11.5 million in grants to 10 organizations working to end modern-day slavery and human trafficking.

Gary Haugen, president and CEO of International Justice Mission, one of the grant recipients, called the move a "game-changing investment." IJM is a Washington-based human rights agency that works to rescue victims of slavery and sexual exploitation in about a dozen countries.

"This is the largest corporate step up to the challenge that is beginning to apply direct resources to the fight against slavery," Haugen said.

According to estimates by grant recipients, Google's support will free an estimated 12,000 people from slavery and prevent millions more from being victimized. Numbers vary widely, but policymakers, activists and scholars estimate the number of modern-day slaves at somewhere between 10 million and 30 million people worldwide.

Google's director of charitable giving, Jacquelline Fuller, said the company chose to spotlight the issue of slavery because the topic of freedom - "the most basic of human rights," as she puts it - resonated with company employees around the world.

"Many people are surprised to learn there are more people trapped in slavery today than any time in history," Fuller said. "The good news is that there are solutions. Google is supporting organizations that have a proven track record and a plan to make a difference at scale."

Google made the announcement through a link posted on its web page. The gift is part of a total of $40 million the Internet giant is giving in charitable donations during the holiday season.

The grant will be shared by newly formed coalitions of international anti-trafficking organizations. The bulk of the donation, $8 million, will go to two coalitions led by IJM in India, with about half going toward direct intervention and government-led rescue operations, and half toward advocacy and awareness projects. In addition, $1.8 million will go to the U.S. Anti-Trafficking Initiative - a partnership between Polaris Project, which operates the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline, Slavery Footprint, an interactive Web site and mobile app that estimates how much of a user's lifestyle relies on forced labor, and IJM.

IJM says most of its funding comes from private donations. In 2010, it notes, less than 1% of its funding came from big business or corporate foundations.

"It gives us a sense of what's possible," said IJM's Haugen. "We can actually change the whole balance of resources between those who are the criminals, hurting human beings and those who are on the side of those who need freedom today."

CNN has also joined the fight against modern-day slavery and collaborates regularly with many advocacy groups, including the recipients of these Google grants. Since launching the CNN Freedom Project in March, CNN has broadcast more than 200 stories and a half-dozen documentaries on the issue of human trafficking and modern-day slavery. Nearly 2,000 people have come out of slavery, either directly or indirectly, as a result of those stories.

From CNN's Freedom Project
Post by: CNN's Leif Coorlim

Editor's note: "Common Dreams", which aired on CNN at the weekend, can now be viewed online in its entirety. Find out more about how you can help the Haitian children at CommonDreamsHaiti.com A Grammy Award-winning musician and actor is using his star power to help rescue children being exploited in Haiti, a nation founded by freed slaves.

In a Freedom Project documentary, Common shines a light on the plight of the Restaveks, the estimated 300,000 children working as domestic servants in Haiti.

The United Nations says the deeply rooted practice is a form of modern-day slavery.

Common said, "I just felt like I was entering another place, another world I had never experienced, and I really had to prepare my mind to be in it."

In Haiti, he met children who are forced to work long hours and denied an education. He also met a team dedicated to securing their freedom.

"Often you speak to them, their heads are down, they don't make eye contact. Most of all, they feel very inferior and that carries them into adulthood," Common said.

"We have a nation where the children who become adults have very little skills. They are illiterate, and they are not integrated into Haitian culture."

The practice of Restavek - from a French word meaning "to stay with" - began with the noble intentions of educating children from rural villages. But over the years, the practice has become twisted. The result is that many children are now exploited rather than helped.

As poverty and misrule held back Haiti over the decades, the chances to go to school became fewer. The Restavek system remained, with children being forced to work instead of receiving an education.

Even when an earthquake almost two years ago devastated large parts of the capital, Port-au-Prince, the Restavek system remained.

In view of the still-destroyed presidential palace is a tent city with trash piled up in the streets, where children can be seen working. Many of them are Restaveks in forced labor, not kids helping mom or dad.

Among them is a 12-year-old girl whose back is scarred from months, possibly years, of carrying water for 30 minutes over rough ground to the canvas-walled home where she lives.

The Restavek Freedom Foundation tries to get the children into school to help make their lives a little easier and their futures brighter.

Haitian-born New Yorker Fabiola Desmont goes searching out Restavek homes, trying to convince the adults that the children should be in school, not working.

At one home, a man was persuaded to let his Restavek child go to school. The child's eyes lit up. But not everyone is able to see the system is wrong.

Common said, "The children are removed from their parents and sent to live with other families where the adults treat them like slaves. They do not get to go to school or enjoy themselves.

"They can encounter mental, physical and emotional abuse with these families. It's a tough situation for me to see them (in), but imagine what it is like to be the kid - it's much tougher for them.

"Restavek Freedom tries to reason with the adults looking after these children, and tries to get them into a better environment.

"We were going (into homes) to say 'it's a child's right to learn.' It will help Haitian society, but some of them could not see that.

"We talked to little kids about what they wanted to do. Some said they wanted to do something great; others dreamed of going to school. Everyone should be allowed to fulfill their dream."


Post by: CNN's Leif Coorlim

By Jessica Dabrowski | jessica.dabrowski@fox8.com Staff Writer 5:09 p.m. EST, December 2, 2011

CLEVELAND— A man who pleaded guilty to three counts related to attempted sex trafficking of children was sentenced Friday.

Otto Linzenbach, 63, of Leipzig, Germany, will spend 15 years in prison.

"The details laid out in this case reveal a secret world that targets our society's most precious assets -- our children," Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said. "We will work cooperatively and vigilantly to protect our most vulnerable."

Undercover Homeland Security Investigations agents created a phony website to cater to individuals seeking to have sex with children.

The agents told the child predators that for about $1,600 they would meet them in Cleveland, then take them to Canada or Michigan to rape a child or children.

The predators were told to pick their victims through photos on the fake website.

No real children were involved.

Linzenbach flew to Cleveland from Germany with the intent to rape children.

"This operation shows the length to which those who seek to have sex with children are willing to go -- even if it means flying across the globe," said Brian Moskowitz, Special Agent in Charge, United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

"It also underscores the fact that lengthy federal prison terms await those who engage in this depraved behavior. HSI will continue to use our unique authorities to confront this threat wherever it exists," Moskowitz added.

Linzenbach was arrested on April 1 after an undercover agent picked him up at the Sheraton Airport Hotel in Cleveland.

Court records show he paid $1,600 in cash before being arrested.

On Aug. 9, Linzenbach pleaded guilty to attempted sex trafficking in children, attempted exploitation of children and travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.

(Fox 8 News Reporter Emily Valdez Contributed to this report.)