As expected, outgoing Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has signed into law a bill that makes human trafficking in the Buckeye State a felony crime.

The bill was approved by the Ohio General Assembly during a lame duck session, with nearly unanimous bipartisan support. Enactment removes Ohio from the handful of states that did not have a separate anti-trafficking law on the books.

Those convicted under the new statute could face as much as eight years in prison.

Anyone who’s seriously interested in understanding the nature and extent of human trafficking in the world need look no farther than the People’s Republic of China.  The Freedom Blog has written extensively on human rights violations in this enormous and increasingly powerful nation, in which state-run capitalism gives everyday Chinese workers and families the quintessential Hobson’s Choice: economic security in exchange for limits on personal freedoms and unconscionable abuse of essential human rights.

Thus it is hardly surprising to learn, as we did this week, that the Chinese government’s Orwellian attempts to limit family size have resulted in a litany of human and civil rights abuses. The latest report published Tuesday by Chinese Human Rights Defenders, documents breadwinners who lose their jobs after the birth of a second child, campaigns that reward citizens for reporting on the reproductive secrets of their neighbors and expectant mothers dragged into operating rooms for late-term abortions. As reported in the New York Times, as 2010 marked the 30th anniversary of the so-called one-child policy, officials have been praising such measures for preventing 400 million births. A smaller population, they argue, has helped fuel China’s astounding economic growth by reducing the demands on food production, education and medical care.

Using such extreme internal controls, China has developed the world’s second largest economy, and it will soon threaten America’s standing both as the economic paragon of efficiency and productivity.  Imagine the outcry if the United States initiated a policy that families could only have one child or face criminal charges.  Yet our official response to Chinese malfeasance over the years has been stony silence and tacit acceptance, other than the occasional tepid scolding that China needs to change its repressive policies.

On the human trafficking front, China is quickly gaining the reputation as the world’s leading haven for forced, exploitative labor.  Last week it was revealed that a factory in far western China had forcibly dragooned dozens of mentally disabled people into crushing rocks used to supply the country’s construction industry.  Now, it’s been reported, police in southwest Guizhou Province have over the past two years broken up 47 human trafficking rings, detained 81 suspects and punished 450 people.  Mind you, this is just one province and relatively under-populated. The report, in China Daily, goes on to state that human trafficking is a major problem in rural China. “Though fewer cases have been reported in recent years,” China Daily says, “women from poor households are still sold as brides. Moreover, baby boys are abducted so they can be sold to childless couples or couples who want a son rather than a daughter.”

The crime gangs typically kidnap women and children in China’s poor southwest provinces. They then sell the victims to central and eastern China, reducing the chances the victims can return home.

These kinds of reports make you wonder whether any effective response to human trafficking on a global scale can be achieved as long as China continues on its path of building economic self-sufficiency through the use of forced labor and blatant disregard of even the most basic human rights.

Viewed through the lens of morality (at least our cultural understanding of what is moral and what isn’t), most Americans would say the trafficking of human beings for profit and exploitation is a moral outrage.

But that’s not the way other cultures look at this issue; in fact, lawyers defending some defendants in trafficking cases are claiming that, according to the cultural norms of their defendants, trafficking is neither immoral nor a crime.

Which raises a provocative and highly charged question:  can “cultural difference” be used as a defense for certain crimes?

This is the question raised in a recent article from the Associated Press. At the heart of the issue is the thorny philosophical debate that has existed from civilization’s earliest days.  Are values like morality absolute . . . concepts that apply to every situation and provide society with a clear demarcation of right from wrong, or relative — dependent upon widely varying cultural differences in individual circumstances?

The debate is not taking place in a vacuum, the AP article emphasizes.  Increasingly, lawyers for defendants accused of human trafficking are arguing in court that while trafficking may be perceived as an evil in Western cultures, it has an entirely different meaning in other situations. Case in point:

Bukie Adetula, a lawyer representing Togolese immigrant, Akouavi Kpade Afolabi, who was convicted of human trafficking and visa fraud charges at her 2009 federal trial in Newark, argued that what prosecutors called clear-cut signs of modern slavery were considered protective measures in African culture: restricting telephone access, holding the girls’ passports, and forbidding them from going out of the house unaccompanied. Prosecutors alleged Afolabi brought at least 20 girls between the ages of 10 and 19 from West African nations on fraudulent visas to New Jersey, effectively enslaving them and forcing them to work in African hair braiding salons for no pay.

“America is supposed to be a country made up of so many different cultures, so, yes, make the laws, and enforce the laws,” Adetula said. “Do not make different sets of laws for different people, but look to the interpretations of acts, before you say: ‘Oh, it’s an offensive act, it’s against the law, it amounts to human slavery.”

Prosecutors, not surprisingly, reject the cultural difference argument. “We don’t want to water down our rule of law,” said Kent Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, who argues that cultural defenses, in most cases, shouldn’t be considered mitigating factors.

“There are some cultures where fathers kill their daughters because they get involved with a man,” Scheidegger said. “That would not be exonerating at all in my view — that’s a crime and it should be punished as a crime — and punished the same as anyone else who commits that crime.”

As trafficking prosecutions involving people from widely divergent cultural backgrounds increase, it will be interesting to see whether defendants will use the cultural difference argument, and whether judges and juries will acknowledge law’s relativity — or its absolute distinction of good versus evil and right from wrong.

The Ohio House has approved — by a vote of 95-0 — a bill that will dramatically strengthen Ohio’s ability to prosecute human trafficking crimes.

The bill, which previously had passed the state Senate, now goes to outgoing Gov. Ted Strickland, who has indicated he would sign the bill into law.

Assuming the bill is signed, Ohio will escape the designation as one of the nation’s most backward states in combating human trafficking.  That’s because it was one of just six states that does not have a separate offense for human trafficking; under current law, trafficking is treated as a secondary crime.  But the new law makes trafficking a 2nd degree felony with a maximum sentence of eight years.

Advocates are generally pleased to have the law, although there was — and remains — strong differences of opinion about one provision of the bill that appears to let customers of prostitutes (so-called “johns”) off the hook for being prosecuted for trafficking.  Original language in the bill specified that a customer could be prosecuted for trafficking if he knew or had reason to believe that the woman he was solicting had been trafficked.  That language was removed by amendment, leaving supporters of the bill somewhat dampened in their enthusiasm for the measure because the original language was seen a a step to raise the penalties for sex solicitation, thus lessening demand.

CNN  has consistently reported on human trafficking crimes, and its recent report on African women being held in slave-like conditions in Newark, New Jersey reveals the classic pattern of exploitation in contemporary society.

The report focuses on two women — from among 20 — trafficked into the U.S. from the west African nations of Ghana and Togo.  The women were put to work in beauty salons, where they worked up tp 14 hours per day, sometimes seven days a week.  When not working, they were held like prisoners in over-crowded rooms, watched over by their traffickers, denied any semblance of freedom, and generally mal-treated as slaves.

The women’s accounts are shocking and compelling, but — unfortunately — not all that unusual in several respects.  For one thing, the women were “recruited” from Africa as minors, still naive about the larger world and especially vulnerable to the persuasive promises of the traffickers.  On a global basis, the vulnerability of young girls is — next to poverty — perhaps the key contributing factor that explains the growth of human trafficking.

For another, the traffickers were not outsiders, but instead Africans themselves.  And one of the gang leaders was a woman.  Contrary to widely-held assumptions, traffickers and victims often are from the same nation, the same social-economic class — even the same neighborhood.  A surprising number of convicted traffickers are women (many of them trafficking survivors).

The other common pattern in the CNN story is trafficking’s invisibility.  The women worked with customers from the greater New York area for years, without anyone apparently suspecting that the person who was braiding their hair or doing their nails was a slave being held captive.  Why the victims didn’t say anything to their customers reveals another typical trafficking situation:  the dominating fear of physical reprisal. Traffickers combine sweet-talking promises with ugly threats of violence, making many victims scared to death to speak up.

As the CNN broadcast reflects, the news media is beginning to pay attention to the issue of human trafficking.  That’s all to the good, especially if viewers also begin to take notice.

Among the many contentious issues confronting Congress, one may have a special relevance to human trafficking victims brought into this country: the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, best known by its acronym as the DREAM Act.

The proposed law would grant eligibility for citizenship for thousands of young illegal immigrants if they go to college or serve in the military. DREAM — if enacted — could help an estimated 2,000,000 illegal immigrants who, in the words of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, were “brought here by others … not of their own volition … but were brought here by parents or smuggled into the country by human traffickers.”

A dramatic example of the circumstances Napolitano describes unfolded recently in Cincinnati when 18-year-old Bernard Pastor Pastor, who had been brought to the United States at age 3 by his parents, was placed in federal custody following a Nov. 17 auto accident. Pastor graduated in the spring from a local high school, where he had by all accounts been a model student. Pastor remains in a federal detention center under the control of one of Homeland Security’s major agencies, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, known as ICE.

Because Pastor has graduated high school in the U.S., he could be eligible for assistance through DREAM, but the proposal appears nowhere near enactment and, in fact, is being bitterly opposed by people in and out of government who believe such a law would encourage even more illegal entries.

A leading opponent is incoming House Speaker John Boehner who, interestingly, grew up in the same Cincinnati suburb of Reading as Pastor.   “This bill allows those who came here illegally to get taxpayer-subsidized in-state tuition for public universities, something that has been prohibited since 1996,” said Cory Fritz, Boehner’s press secretary.  “It also provides a path to citizenship for a large number of adults, and provides a safe harbor for any illegal immigrant from being deported because once a DREAM Act application is filed, no matter how spurious, the federal government is prohibited from deporting.

Pastor was not trafficked into this country, but some proponents of DREAM say the law could apply to trafficking victims if they could somehow manage to gain an education or serve in the U.S. military. Trafficking victims can find assistance through the federal TVPA Act, which provides temporary visa protection, rehabilitation and counseling for those who have been exploited in sex trafficking or other forms of modern-day slavery.

While Congress debates the merits of DREAM, young Pastor remains in detention, his future at this point in his young more like a nightmare.

With action by the Ohio Senate approving a sweeping new bill that would make human trafficking in the Buckeye State a second degree felony, the focus of attention now shifts to the House, where passage before year’s end is needed if the bill is to become law.

If the House follows the Senate (which is expected), and the proposal is signed by outgoing Gov. Ted Strickland, it would remove Ohio from the steadily shrinking list of states without a distinct anti-trafficking law.

The proposed statute, sponsored by Toledo State Senator Teresa Fedor, accomplishes the major goal of codifying human trafficking in Ohio as a felony offense, with penalties of up to eight years.  The bill’s key provisions:

• Define human trafficking as a violent crime;
• Add the definition of human trafficking to the crimes of kidnapping and abduction;
• Make kidnapping based on involuntary servitude a first-degree felony;
• Make it a crime to destroy, conceal of confiscate identification documents of trafficking victims;
• For any victim under age 16, compulsion of prostitution becomes a first-degree felony

Troubling to many anti-trafficking advocates, the bill includes language that appears to let customers of sex — so-called “johns” — off the hook from being prosecuted for engaging in trafficking.  That’s because language has been deleted that would make them liable if they knew or had reason to believe the woman they solicited was a trafficking victim.

Mark Ensalaco, director of the Human Rights Studies Program at the University of Dayton and co-founder of Abolition Ohio, said the proposed amendments would not “fundamentally undermine the intent and purpose of this critically important legislation.”

He said the bill would enable the attorney general to prosecute crimes that fall outside the jurisdiction of federal agencies under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act.

Moreover, current law, which only allows for increased penalties for human trafficking, is inadequate because it does not create an actual offense for the practice, he said. No one has yet been prosecuted under the existing statute.

Alex Kreidenweis, chairman of the Ohio Abolitionist Coalition, urged lawmakers to pass the bill during the lame duck session, expressing concern that deliberation over the next biennial budget would further delay passage. “Human trafficking will not end with this legislation, but it will go a long way in setting the legal framework to protect those victimized by this horrendous crime,” he said.

One potential stumbling point is that the House already has a more expansive anti-trafficking bill under consideration. That bill contains many of the same provisions as Fedor’s legislation, but it also seeks additional state funds for trafficking victim services, law enforcement training and public awareness campaigns.

Time is a crucial consideration any measure introduced in the 2009-2010 legislative session must be signed into law by the end of the year.  If not, a new bill must be submitted when the 2011 -2012 General Assembly goes into session in January.

The crime of human trafficking doesn’t necessarily involve transporting people across national borders.  In fact, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), most trafficking occurs within a country, as victims are moved from rural villages and small towns to major cities, where traffickers are better able to cover their tracks.

But a significant amount of trafficking does involve movement between and among nations.  There are, according to ILO data, around 140 countries that are considered “source” nations for trafficking where victims — especially girls and women, but also male laborers — are moved like commodities to nations where their “labor” is in demand.  Some 127 nations are described as primarily “destination” countries for trafficking.  These are generally post-industrial, relatively well-off countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, the Middle East and nations with major world cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Lagos.

As if any further evidence of this was needed comes a report in a German newspaper reporting that upwards of 80% of prostitutes in that nation are from Bulgaria and Romania, two East European nations recently admitted to the EU.  The whole of eastern Europe — former Soviet Republics such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova — have long been viewed as source countries for sex traffickers.

The Die Welt article alleging that dominance of east European prostitutes is considered a slap at the German government’s apparent inability (or unwillingness) to control its borders and prevet trafficking.  For its part, the German government puts the blame on Bulgaria and Romania.

When blame is replaced by responsibility, then progress in controlling or eliminating trafficking may some day become a reality.

Cambodia, long notorious as a haven for sex tourists and pedophiles who prey on trafficked women and children, may finally be taking action to eliminate or at least diminish these gross human rights crimes.

According to Newsweek magazine, Cambodian officials — police, judges and prosecutors — are now pressing charges against perpetrators after years of neglect and inaction.

Interestingly, and a finding that it at odds with commonly held perceptions, the majority of pedophiles and sex customers are not Westerners, but local Cambodian men.

Newsweek reports that according to a report released last month by the juvenile-protection NGO, ECPAT (End Child Prostitution, Abuse and Trafficking), the vast majority of former child sex workers say their clients were local men. It may not seem like much of a revelation given the disparity in numbers between Western and local men but, as ECPAT points out, the findings run contrary to “the usually held assumption that pedophilia is a Western problem.”

Another finding, this one from Amnesty International, underscores an ugly facet of global trafficking that is drawing increasing attention:  sex trafficking victims — usually women and girls — are treated with contempt and as outcasts in their communities, which makes rescue and rehabilitation much more challenging.

In Cambodian culture, it is often the reputation of the victim, rather than of the perpetrator, that is blighted. According to a report on Cambodia by Amnesty International released earlier this year, girls who are sexually abused often become outcasts in their community, while convicted offenders face little stigma.

Los Angeles police recently raided a well-known “hostess” club, arresting 81 women, but that’s not the end of the story — only the start of what appears to be a quintessential case of domestic indentured servitude.

The women busted in the raid are all illegal immigrants who were “employed” to entertain the mostly male clientele of Club 907 by talking, dancing and drinking — non-alcoholic — beverages.  While the customer paid $30 for the entertainment, the women were working under an elaborate earning scheme that paid them hardly anything.

According to investigators from the Coalition for Humane Immigration Reform, who have interviewed many of the women, each dancer was required to earn $600 a week for the club, which means being selected by men to socialize for at least 20 hours. Women who met that quota were paid at a rate of 19 cents a minute plus a $50 bonus each week. Those who didn’t saw their wages drop to 16 cents a minute and received no paycheck at all until they made up the shortfall.  If a customer left without paying, the dancer became indebted to the club.

All of which violates a number of California wage laws, and prompted police to look beyond the surface situation they were confronting.  Their conclusion was that Club 907, rather than a typical hostess club that are commonplace through L.A., may in fact be an operation for human trafficking and, at the least, an example of the way in which illegal immigrants — already vulnerable to exploitation — can be forced into working for next to nothing and with little opportunity to gain control of their lives.

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times captured the essence of the seemingly routine vice raid:

“It is to the Police Department’s credit that trafficking and exploitation concerns have been at the heart of the case; there was a time when the dancers could have been indiscriminately arrested on charges of lewd behavior or prostitution. Now, state labor officials and federal immigration authorities say they have turned their attention to the club — appropriately — and police say that more charges are likely.”

State and federal officials have broken up two trafficking rings — further evidence of the existence of this hidden crime, as well as affirmation that law enforcement efforts to gain control of the issue are increasing. The break-ups also provides more proof that Ohio’s reputation as a state where trafficking is flourishing is apparently well-deserved.

In Minneapolis-St. Paul, a trafficking ring operated by Somali gangs used teenage girls as prostitutes in several Midwestern states — including Ohio — according to a federal indictment.

The 24-count indictment, unsealed in U.S. District Court in the Middle District of Tennessee, said one of the gangs’ goals was recruiting females under age 18, including some under age 14, and forcing them into prostitution so the defendants could get money, marijuana or liquor.

The indictment details several instances in which young Somali or African American girls were taken from place to place and forced to engage in sex acts with multiple people. One girl was under 13 when she was first prostituted. Another girl was 18 when she was raped by multiple men in a hotel room, the indictment said.

In Cleveland, Ohio, meanwhile, the FBI along with local police and the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Office have made 80 arrests in the Cleveland area alone targeting prostitution, trying to identify and recover children who have been sold into human trafficking.

In both instances, trafficking victims were moved into Ohio, which may or may not be coincidental.  That’s because the Buckeye State is one of only a handful of states without a distinct anti-human trafficking law.  Efforts are underway to enact such legislation in the Ohio General Assembly.  Advocates from throughout the state are descending upon Columbus this week to argue for a tougher law; among the arguments, the lobbying effort will point out the growing evidence of trafficking crimes in the state.

The fledgling global antislavery movement is proceeding along numerous fronts, including rescue and restore programs of victims, proposals for new and tougher laws and stepped-up law enforcement and — most of all — increasing efforts to raise public awareness of the simple (yet to many, shocking) fact that slavery still exists in the 21st Century.

Foremost in the public awareness field are entertainers such as Ricky Martin, Emma Thompson, Mia Sorvino and dozens of others.  But among the more prominent and active are husband and wife Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore. For the second year in a row, the couple has lent their name and endorsement to the annual Freedom Awards event put on by prominent NGO Free the Slaves.  And this past week, they   joined forces with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to promote the agency’s antislavery efforts and to establish a trust fund to aid trafficking victims. (Recently, and completely unannounced, the couple appeared at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to view our new exhibition on modern-day slavery and trafficking, “Invisible: Slavery Today; Kutcher later tweeted that he thought the exhibit was “compelling.”)

Kutcher and Moore have created a foundation to carry on their awareness-raising efforts, and if there’s a unifying message to their activities, it is to expose the prevailing culture in show business in which women are portrayed as objects and men celebrated for their sexual prowess.

The entertainment industry has often become engaged in social causes, even as its “product” — movies and music, especially — sometimes celebrates the very behaviors and attitudes that create or sustain negative social behavior, such as smoking, the pimp culture, and violence.  Not that the two celebrities are lacking critics, especially regarding their extra-marital issues. But their willingness to talk about sexual exploitation, and how our society promotes a casual acceptance of treating women and girls as less-than-equal members of society,  gives Moore’s and Kutcher’s comments a welcomed relevance in our image-laden culture.