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A few years ago, on board a flight from Los Angeles to New York, a group of young girls wore nothing but jeans and T-shirts - in the middle of winter. They didn't speak English, and they didn't speak to each other the entire flight. I remember thinking it was odd, but I didn't know what to do about it. My mother, a retired flight attendant, once had a man on board a flight traveling with a teenage girl. They didn't look like they were related, and they weren't friendly with each other either. "When I asked the girl what...

Six men, five of which are from Muslim backgrounds, have been charged with the sexual exploitation, trafficking and rape of underage white girls in the town of Rochdale, Northern England. The charges relate to offences allegedly committed between 2004 and 2008 against three girls aged between 14 and 16 at the time. Joshim Miah, 31, of Rochdale, is accused of rape and trafficking a person within the UK for sexual exploitation.

"As strip malls go, the one you seek is nondescript, all brick exterior and maroon awnings, but there's safety in this disguise, a sense of legitimacy that comes with this out-in-the-open location. ***snip*** According to a 2014 study by the liberal-leaning think tank Urban Institute on the underground commercial sex industry in eight U.S. cities, the total industry--inclusive of Asian massage parlors, brothels, street-level prostitution and other sources--fetched between $39.9 and $290 million in 2007, depending on the city. This demand led to the opening of nearly 600 new illicit massage parlors in the U.S. from 2011 to 2013, pushing...

--SNIP-- Her story highlights the brutal realities of human trafficking in Mexico and the United States, an underworld that has destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of Mexican girls like Karla. Human trafficking has become a trade so lucrative and prevalent, that it knows no borders and links towns in central Mexico with cities like Atlanta and New York. U.S. and Mexican officials both point to a town in central Mexico that for years has been a major source of human trafficking rings and a place where victims are taken before being eventually forced into prostitution.

... Although Trump glibly describes "Operation Wetback" as moving undocumented immigrants "waaay south," this program was at best inhumane and at worst horrific. Back then, the government rounded up suspected undocumented immigrants and sent them deep into the Mexican interior, where they were abandoned with next to nothing. The transports across the border were reportedly "indescribable scenes of human misery and tragedy." In one instance, 88 deportees died from heat stroke in the desert. Other deportees were sent to the Mexican Gulf Coast by ship, in vessels described by historians as an "eighteenth century slave ship" or "penal hell ship."...

LOS ANGELES >> Hundreds of juvenile victims of human trafficking were recovered and their pimps arrested during a nationwide operation that included the Los Angeles area, the FBI announced Tuesday. Nationally, 149 victims were recovered and 153 pimps arrested in “Operation Cross County IX,” which concluded over the weekend, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

Thousands of women and girls disappear in Mexico every year - many are never seen alive again. When one couple realised their daughter was missing, they knew they didn't have long to find her. Elizabeth realised something was terribly wrong within 15 minutes of her teenage daughter, Karen, disappearing. "I just knew it, I had an anguish that I'd never felt before. I searched the streets, called friends and family, but no-one had seen her," she says. "She'd gone to the public toilets with nothing - no money, no mobile phone, no clothes… We thought she'd been kidnapped." Karen disappeared...

Federal authorities have seized a private airplane full of illegal immigrants. The aircraft was being used in an attempt to smuggle seven illegal immigrants from the Texas border into the interior U.S. to avoid immigration checkpoints. The arrests of the seven illegal immigrants and seizure of the airplane took place on Sunday morning following a routine inspection at the McAllen Miller International airport, information released by the Air and Marine branch of U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed.It was during that inspection that authorities found the illegal immigrants hiding inside a Beech King Air E90 aircraft. The airplane’s pilot, a...

The photographs of the body of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy, vividly convey the human tragedy on Europe's borders - but not the complexity. Many are fleeing war, but many are fleeing poverty. This Great Migration was not expected because, for years, politicians believed that there would be less of it as poor countries became richer. Give aid, not shelter, ran the argument. "As the benefits of economic growth are spread in Mexico," Bill Clinton once assured Americans, "there will be less illegal immigration because more Mexicans will be able to support their children by staying home." When Jose...

Romanian national held after death toll in Austrian motorway tragedy is raised from initial estimate of about 50 victims Hungarian police have arrested the driver of a lorry found on an Austrian motorway with the decomposing bodies of 71 people, including a baby girl, inside. The man is a Romanian national, a police statement said on Friday. It came as the Austrian police confirmed three arrests in the case, following reports from the Krone newspaper that seven smugglers linked to the lorry had been held by authorities in Hungary. The death toll was raised on Friday from initial estimates of...

DOZENS OF PEOPLE were found dead in a truck on an Austrian motorway today. It is understood they suffocated to death. Police in Austria have said the deceased were migrants but it is not yet clear how long they had been in the lorry. According to local reports, between 20 and 50 bodies were discovered in the vehicle. It was found on a parking strip off the highway in Burgenland. It had been there since Wednesday and initial indications are that the driver fled. Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is at the scene and has been tweeting about the...

MARION, Ohio (AP) — The thousand-mile journey to the Texas border was supposed to bring the Guatemalan teenagers to a better life. Instead, it was the beginning of a terrible ordeal: prosecutors say they were fraudulently plucked from U.S. custody by conspirators posing as friends or family who forced them to work as virtual slaves. As the country's immigration system was being overwhelmed by an unprecedented flow of unaccompanied children fleeing unrest in Central America, prosecutors said one of their countrymen orchestrated the scheme to force them to work on egg farms in Ohio. U.S. immigration policy dictates that unaccompanied...

The lawsuit is being filed on behalf of a California resident.Bay Area activists have filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging that Costco is knowingly selling frozen shrimp tied to a company that uses slave labor. Costco knows the farmed prawns it buys from Southeast Asia are linked to fishermen from Thailand who have been shackled, tortured or even murdered, activists claimed at a press conference held in Burlingame on Wednesday morning. The lawsuit is being filed on behalf of a California resident who cites state laws that aim to prevent companies from misleading customers about illegal behavior in...

The Muslim jihadists running ISIS already have been documented shooting, drowning, burning, crucifying, beheading, raping and blowing up victims. And they’ve been suspected of trafficking in human organs in the past. Now, a new report cites social media conversations that appear to tie sex slavery to organ trafficking. The Middle East Media Research Institute cited social media reports in which “ISIS fighters and supporters openly discuss” not only sex slaves and “the going prices for them” but also “other issues relating to them – such as possible trafficking in human organs.’ The report explains: “On Sept. 3, 2014, prior...

Kurdish official Said Mimousini said 19 women have been executed by ISIS after they refused to have sex with fighters. Following the brutal beheading of two women for allegations of witchcraft and sorcery, ISIS recently executed 19 women due to their refusal to participate in sexual acts with the group's fighters. Kurdish official Said Mimousini said the women were being held hostage in Mosul, Iraq, which is a stronghold of the terrorist group after its capture in June 2014. The women were executed a few days ago after they refused to engage in "sexual jihad," according to the Mirror. A United...

A fleet of at least 30 fishing trawlers crewed by slaves is being hunted off the coast of Papua New Guinea as the true extent becomes apparent of the trafficking of Burmese men by a massive Thai-run criminal syndicate operating throughout the East Indies. Immigration officials have so far intercepted one of the fishing vessels, called the Blissful Reefer, and rescued its trafficked crew. Another 33 Thai trawlers thought to be crewed by slaves are being tracked in fishing grounds off the south coast of Papua New Guinea, known locally as the Dog Leg. The trawlers are thought to be...

A man and woman face state human trafficking and federal Mann Act charges after a raid on a Gary apartment. Vondell B. Henry, 45, and Ashley Ann Friske, 26, both of Gary, were arrested by Lake County Sheriff's Department officers around 8 a.m. Wednesday in an apartment in the 3500 block of Washington Street in the city's Glen Park section near Indiana University Northwest. In a news release Thursday, Lake County Sheriff's Department spokesman Officer Mark Back said the department conducted a search warrant at the apartment with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. . .

A draft UN report has revealed that UN peacekeepers routinely flout a ban of the international organization and pay for sex with money, dresses, jewelry, perfume, cell phones and other items in a flagrant exploitation of poverty-stricken populations they are meant to protect. Reuters received a copy of the draft report, which was conducted by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), and detailed how UN forces bought the sexual services of hundreds of women in Haiti and Liberia who said they were forced to sell their bodies due to hunger and poverty. "Evidence from two peacekeeping mission countries...

The U.N. peacekeepers arrive; months later, some leave infants behind. Now the United Nations has quietly started to offer DNA testing to help prove paternity claims and ensure support for the so-called “peacekeeper babies.” It’s a delicate step, as countries that contribute U.N. troops might not welcome a practice that could prove not only fatherhood but wrongdoing. Of the dozen paternity claims received last year, four were associated with alleged sexual abuse of a minor.The new effort comes a decade after a groundbreaking report on sexual abuse and exploitation by peacekeepers suggested that the U.N. secretary-general be authorized to “require...

Contradicts local officials in Yorksville, Illinois who stated no complaints of misconduct From Eric Dondero: First some context via the Chicago Tribune on Friday, "Ex-Yorkville school chief recalls no misconduct complaints against Hastert": James Garnett, who was superintendent of the Yorkville school district for five of the years Dennis Hastert taught there, said Friday there were no complaints of misconduct lodged against the now-indicted House speaker during that time. Hastert, who represented the far western suburbs in Congress, was accused Thursday by federal prosecutors of agreeing to pay $3.5 million in hush money to a longtime acquaintance to cover up...