Ugandan Newspaper Ordered to Stop Targeting Gays and Lesbians

A Ugandan judge has ordered a newspaper to stop publishing the names and photographs of Ugandans it claims are gay and lesbian alongside calls to report them to police and even put them to death. Last month, the magazine, Rolling Stone, ran an article on what it called Uganda’s "top" 100 gays and lesbians, alongside a yellow banner that read "Hang Them." A similar article appeared again on Sunday. Uganda’s Rolling Stone is not affiliated with the US magazine by the same name. Outside the courtroom, Pepe Julian Onziema of the group Sexual Minorities Uganda spoke out about the case.

Pepe Julian Onziema: "What the paper has done is incited violence against us, and we haven’t felt protected by the government here, so we are trying to call on the courts of law to emphasize and put in action the protection and promotion of human rights in this country, regardless of who you are, race, color, sexual orientation, identity."

Ugandan human rights activists say at least four gays and lesbians have been attacked since the first list was published.

Rape and Minerals in the Congo

The United Nations is warning Democratic Republic of Congo troops are committing rape and murder in the same areas where rebel forces carried out mass rapes just weeks ago. On Thursday, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Margot Wallström, told the Security Council that DRC troops had carried out abuses in the Walikale region. Between 300 to 500 women, girls and babies were raped when Rwandan and Congolese rebels stormed villages there in July and August. Wallström said Walikale residents are being terrorized because their region has valuable minerals.

Margot Wallström: "The mass rapes in Walikale demonstrate a nexus between the illicit exploitation of natural resources by armed elements and patrons of sexual violence. It is evident that communities in lucrative mining areas are at particularly high risk. The mineral wealth that should be the source of their prosperity is instead the source of their greatest suffering. I encourage more concerted attention on this aspect. Therefore, mass rapes that occurred in Walikale should also be investigated from the angle of the competition over mining interests as one of the root causes of conflict and sexual violence."

Protesters demand G8/G20 leaders address rights of women and girls around the world

Standing in the courtyard outside Pitman Hall at Ryerson University, Jessica Yee clutched the megaphone and eyed the crowd of over 200 demonstrators.

As she began to speak, the television cameras, reporters and photographers inched closer.

“We’re here today because if we don’t have rights over our own bodies, what do we have?” asked Yee, a self-described Indigenous feminist reproductive justice freedom fighter.

Her commanding voice thundered through the crowd, some of whom were holding signs that read “Maternal Health Includes Abortion”, “Sex Work Is Real Work” and “Hey G8, Support For Women Everywhere.”
“We’re here today because women aren’t shutting the fuck up and because sex workers make a valuable contribution to society.”

Statistics and Maps on Human Trafficking

Human Trafficking Prosecution vs. Conviction vs. Legislation Statistics and Maps

The Countertraffickers

Stella Rotaru’s cell-phone number is scribbled on the wall of a women’s jail in Dubai. That’s what a former inmate told her, and Rotaru does get a lot of calls from Dubai, including some from jail. But she gets calls from many odd places—as well as faxes, e-mails, and text messages—pretty much non-stop. “I never switch off my phone,” she said. “I cannot afford to, morally.” She looked at her battered cell phone, which has pale-gold paint peeling off it, and gave a small laugh. 

Rotaru, who is twenty-six, works for the International Organization for Migration, a group connected to the United Nations, in Chisinau, Moldova. She is a repatriation specialist. Her main task is bringing lost Moldovans home. Nearly all her clients are victims of human trafficking, most of them women sold into prostitution abroad, and their stories pour across her desk in stark vignettes and muddled sagas of desperation, violence, betrayal, and sorrow.

State Department Says Economic Crisis Fuels Human Trafficking

The global financial crisis is feeding both the supply and demand for human trafficking, the State Department warned today in its annual international survey of trafficking.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was expected to highlight the issue at a press conference this morning, where she will officially unveil the report.

The report, mandated by Congress, looks at the efforts of nations around the world to combat severe forms of human trafficking. Millions of people are believed to be trafficked across international borders each year for forced or coerced labor and for sexual exploitation.

South Africa Slave Trade (and how the world cup is good for business)

"Despite more than a dozen international conventions banning slavery in the past 150 years, there are more slaves today than at any point in human history. Slaves are those forced to perform services for no pay beyond subsistence and for the profit of others who hold them through fraud and violence."

Obama has pledged to make the fight to abolish modern-day slavery a top foreign policy priority, but the U.S. currently spends more in a single day fighting drug trafficking than it does in an entire year fighting human trafficking

For a South African victim of human trafficking, this was the endgame. On a freezing night last July, Sindiswa, 17, lay curled in a fetal position in bed No. 7 of a state-run hospice in central Bloemfontein. Well-used fly strips hung between fluorescent lights, pale blue paint flaked off the walls, and fresh blood stained her sheets, the rusty bedpost and the linoleum floor. Sindiswa had full-blown AIDS and tuberculosis, and she was three months pregnant. Sweat poured from her forehead as she whispered her story through parched lips covered with sores. A few blocks away, the roars of rugby fans erupted from Free State Stadium. In June the roars will be from fans of the World Cup.